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THE TIN TRUMPET ; 

OR, 

HEADS AND TAILS FOR THE WISE AND WAGGISH. 




A NEW AMERICAN EDITION, WITH ALTERATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 

V 

" Misce stultitiam consiliis brevem." — Horace. 

NEW YORK : 
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, 

346 & 348 BROADWAY. 

1859. 




"FIT 



Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1859, by 

D. APPLETON & CO., 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the 
Southern District of New York. 



THE AUTHOR'S PREFACE. 

Ad Candidum Lectorem. 

Cum legis Iranc nostrum, Lector studiose, libellum, 

Decedat vultu tetrica ruga tuo. 
£Ton sunt hsec tristi conscripta Catonibus ore, 

ISTon Heraclitis, non gravibus Curiis : 
Sed si Heracliti, Curii, si forte Catones, 

Adjicere hue oculos et legere ista velint, 
Multa Mc invenient quaa possint pellere curas, 

Plurima quaa msestos exhilarare queant. 



AMERICAN EDITOR'S PREFACE. 

The " Tin Trumpet," by the late Paul Chatfield, M.D., 
edited by Jefferson Sanders, Esq., was first published in 
London, in the year 1836. It was immediately republished 
in this country, but owing to the fact that much of its 
matter was of purely English, local, and temporary in- 
terest, referring to the political and religious squabbles of 
the times, the success of the work here was but temporary, 
and it has long been entirely out of print. It contained, 
however, a sufficient quantity of wit and wisdom, original 
and selected, to make its resuscitation at this time appear 
desirable. The American Editor to whom was intrusted 
the office of preparing it for republication has thought fit, 
while pruning the original of all that appeared superan- 
nuated and of no present and lasting interest, to embody 
with what remained such selections from his Common- 
place-book as appeared to him to come legitimately within 
the design of the author. The original plan of the book — 
an alphabetically arranged collection of the wit and wis- 
dom of many of the best writers, ancient and modern — has 
not been changed. 



Vi AMERICAN EDITOR'S PREFACE. 

Such as it now is, the book is committed to the Amer- 
ican public, with the belief that while it will become a 
mine of easy quotations to many of our ready writers, it 
will yet more serve to while away pleasantly and not un- 
profitably a summer afternoon or winter evening to the 
general reader. 

Am. Ed. 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 



A. B. C. — It seems, at first sight, very singular that a blind 
child should be taught to read ; but observe what the common 
process is with every child : a child sees certain marks upon a 
plain piece of paper, which he is taught to call A, B, ; but 
if you were to raise certain marks in relief upon pasteboard, as 
you may of course do, and teach a blind child to call these 
marks which he felt A, B, 0, a blind child would as easily 
learn his alphabet by his fingers as another would do by his 
eyes, and might go on feeling through Homer or Yirgil as we 
do by persevering in looking at the book. Just in the same 
manner, says Sydney Smith, I should not be surprised if the 
alphabet could be taught by a series of well-contrived flavors ; 
and we may even live to see the day when men may be taught 
to smell out their learning, and when a fine scenting day shall 
be (which it certainly is not at present) considered as a day 
peculiarly favorable to study. 

A.B.C.DABIAN — seems to have been an ancient term for 
pedagogue. Wood, in his Athenas Oxoniensis, speaking of 
Thomas Farnabie, says — " When he landed in Cornwall, his 
distresses made him stoop so low, as to be an A.b.c.darian, 
and several were taught their hornbooks by him." By assum- 
ing his title, its wearer certainly proves himself to be a man 
of letters ; but my friend T. H. suggests, that the school- 



2 THE TIN TEUMPET. 

master who wishes to establish his aptitude for his office, 
instead of. taking the three first, had better designate himself 
by the two last letters of the alphabet. 

ABLUTION — a duty somewhat too strictly inculcated in 
the Mahometan ritual, and sometimes too laxly observed in 
Christian practice. As a man may have a dirty body, and 
an undefiled mind, so may he have clean hands in a literal, 
and not in a metaphorical sense. All washes and cosmetics 
without, he may yet labor under a moral hydrophobia within. 
Pleasant to see an im-puritan of this stamp holding his nose, 
lest the wind should come between an honest scavenger and 
his gentility, while his own character stinks in the public 
nostrils. Oh, if the money and the pains that we bestow upon 
perfumes and adornments for the body, were applied to the 
purification and embellishment of the mind ! Oh, if we were 
as careful to polish our manner as our teeth, to make our 
temper as sweet as our breath, to cut off our peccadilloes as to 
pare our nails, to be as upright in character as in person, to 
save our souls as to shave our chins, what an immaculate race 
should we become ! Exteriorly, we are not a filthy people. 
"We throw so much dirt at our neighbours, that we have none 
left for ourselves. "We are only unclean in our hearts and 
lives. As occasional squalor is the worst evil of poverty and 
labor, so should constant cleanliness be the greatest luxury of 
wealth and ease ; yet even our aristocracy are not altogether 
without reproach in this respect. It is well known that the 
celebrated Lord Nelson had not washed his hands for the last 
eight years of his life. Alas ! upon what trifles may our repu- 
tation for cleanliness depend 1 Even a foreign accent may ruin 
us. In a trial, where a German and his wife were giving evi- 
dence, the former was asked by the counsel, " How old are 
you ? " — " I am dirty." — " And what is your wife ? " — "Mine 
wife is dirty-two." — " Then, Sir, you are a very nasty couple, 
and I wish to have nothing further to say to either of you." 

ABRIDGMENT — anything contracted into a small com- 
pass ; such, for instance, as the abridgment of the statutes in 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 3 

twenty volumes, folio. To make a good abridgment, requires 
as much time and talent as to write an original work ; a fact 
of which the reader will find abundant proof as he proceeds ! 
When Queen Anne told Dr. South that his sermon had only- 
one fault — that of being too short, — he replied, that he should 
have made it shorter if he had had more time. How comes 
it that no enterprising bookseller has ever thought of publish- 
ing " an Abridgment of the Lives of the Fathers ? " I know 
not whether the religious public would give it encouragement, 
but I am confident, that in England, the land of primogeniture 
and entailed estates, there is not an heir in the three king- 
doms who would not exert himself to insure its success. 

ABSCESS — a morbid tumor, frequently growing above 
the shoulders, and swelling to a considerable size, when it 
comes to a head, with nothing in it. It is not always a natural 
disease, for nature abhors a vacuum ; yet fools, fops, and 
fanatics are very subject to it, and it sometimes attacks old 
women of both sexes. " I wish to consult you upon a little 
project I have formed," said a noodle to his friend. " I have 
an idea in my head — " " Have you ? " interposed the friend, 
with a look of great surprise ; " then you shall have my 
opinion at once : keep it there ! — it may be some time before 
you get another." 

ABSOLUTE GOVERNMENT— There is a simplicity and 
unity in despotism, which is not without its advantages, if 
every despot were to be a Titus or a Vespasian — to unite great 
talents with a clement and benevolent heart. But the chances 
against such a fortunate conjunction are almost incalculable ; 
and even where it occurs, its effects may be suddenly defeated, 
and the best sovereign be converted into the worst by an attack 
of gout, or a fit of indigestion. Besides, there are few who 
think of unrestrained power, without being intoxicated, or, 
perhaps, maddened. Nero, before he succeeded to the crown, 
was remarkable for his moderation and humanity. So true is 
that ditum of Tacitus, that the throne of a despot is generally 
ascended by a wild beast. Free institutions are the best, 



4 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

indeed the only security, both for the governed #nd the 
governor ; for there is no remedy against a tyrant but assassina- 
tion, of which ultima ratio populi, even our own times have 
furnished instances at St. Petersburg and Constantinople. 
Few modern despots can calculate on being so fortunate as 
the Turk Mustapha, who having rebelled against his brother, 
was taken prisoner, and ordered for execution on the following 
morning The Sultan, however, being suddenly seized with 
the cholic, accompanied, perhaps, with some fraternal, as well 
as internal qualms, ordered the decapitation to be deferred for 
two days, during which he died, and his imprisoned brother 
quietly succeeded to the throne. " happy Mustapha ! " 
exclaimed the Sultaness, " you were born to be lucky, for you 
have not only derived life from your mother's stomach, but 
from your brother's ! " 

ABSURDITY — anything advanced by our opponents con- 
trary to our own practice, or above our comprehension, — and, 
therefore, a term very liberally used, because it is implied in 
exact proportion to our own ignorance. Nothing to which we 
are so quick-sighted in another, so blind in ourselves, not only 
individually, but nationally. " Comment ! " exclaims the 
French sailor in Josephus Molitor, when he saw Ironmonger 
Lane written on the corner of a street in London, which he 
read " Irons manger Vane." — " Comment ! Es ge qu'on mange 
des anes dans ge pays ci ? Mais, quelle aosurdite ! " How 
many of us, in travelling, exhibit our own, in imputing an 
imaginary absurdity to others ! " How ridiculous ! " exclaims 
the travelled servant in one of Dr. Moore's novels, " to dress 
the French regiments of the line in blue, — a colour which, as all 
the world knows, is only proper for Oxford Blues and the 
Artillery." Some of our highest classes are unconscious imita- 
tors of the knight of the shoulder-knot. 

Of the Eeductio ad dbsurdum, a very useful weapon of logic 
in arguing with ultras of any class, I know not a happier illus- 
tration than the Duke of Buckingham's reply to Dryden's 
famous line — 

" My wound is great, because it is so small." 
" Then 'twould bo greater were it none at all." 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 5 

ACCENT — is to the voice, what money is to the purse. 
There are individuals who through an incorrect ear are unable 
even to modulate their voices correctly, and who thus produce 
the most ludicrous effects without knowing it themselves. 
Such was the clergyman who read from the pulpit : " Saddle 
me, the ass ; and they saddled Mm." Rebuking one for swear- 
ing, this clergyman said, "Do you not know the command- 
ments : " Swear not at all ? " " I do not swear at all" was the 
reply ; " but only at those who annoy me." 

ABUSE — intemperate, excites our sympathies, not for the 
abuser, but the abusee, a fact which some of our virulent critics 
and political writers are very apt to forget. Like other poisons, 
when administered in too strong a dose, it is thrown off by 
the intended victim, and often relieves, where it was meant to 
destroy. If the wielder of the weapon be such an unskilful 
sportsman as to overcharge his piece, he must not be surprised 
if it explode, and wound no one but himself. Dirt wantonly 
cast, only acts like fuller's earth, defiling for the moment, but 
purifying in the end ; so that those who are the most bespat- 
tered, come out the most immaculate. Pleasant was the well- 
known revenge of the vilipended author, who having in vain 
endeavored to propitiate his critic by returning eulogy for 
abuse, sent him at last the following epigram : — 

44 "With industry I spread your praise, 
With equal you my censure blaze ; 
But faith ! 'tis all in vain we do, 
The -world believes nor me, nor you." 

ACCOMPLISHMENTS— In women all that can be supplied 
by the dancing-master, music-master, mantua-maker and milli- 
ner. In men, tying a cravat, talking nonsense, playing at 
billiards, dressing like a real, and driving like an amateur 
coachman. The latter is an excusable ambition, even in our 
modern gentlemen, for it shows that they know themselves, and 
have found a more proper place, and more congenial elevation 
than the Senate. Some there are, who, deeming dissolute 
manners an accomplishment, endeavor to show by their profli- 



6 THE TIJS TEUMPET. 

gacy that they know the world, an example which might be 
dangerous, but that the world knows them. Accomplishments 
are sociable — but nothing so sociable as a cultivated mind. 

ACTION" — is Life. It is not work that kills men: but 
worry. Work is healthy and invigorating; you can scarce 
put more upon a man than he can bear. "Worry is rust upon 
the blade. It is not the revolution, but the friction, which wears 
out machinery. 

Carlyle says, "men do less than they ought, unless they 
do all that ~they can." And again, "the kind of speech in a 
man betokens the kind of action you will get from him." 

Also, it is written, " of every noble action, the intent is to 
give worth reward — vice punishment." 

ACTOR — Yivid conception, and keen sensibility, will not 
of themselves make a good actor ; but it may be questioned 
whether a good actor can be made without them. Rare indeed 
is the physical and moral combination that produces a superior 
performer, as will at once appear if we compare the best ama- 
teur with a second or even a third-rate professional actor. 
What miserable mummery are private theatricals ! At those 

given last year at Hatfield House, old General G was 

pressed by a lady to say whom he liked best of all the actors. 
Notwithstanding his usual bluntness, he evaded the question 
for some time, but being importuned for an answer, he at length 
growled, — " Well, madam, if you will have a reply, I liked the 
prompter the best, because I heard the most of him, and saw 
the least of him ! " 

ADDRESS — Generally a string of fulsome compliments and 
professions, indiscriminately lavished upon every king or indi- 
vidual in authority, in order to assure him of the particular, 
personal, and exclusive veneration in which he is held by those 
who, being the very obedient humble servants of circumstances, 
would pay equal homage to Jack Ketch, if he possessed equal 
power. In the latter case, they would perhaps attempt to 
dignify Lis person and his office by some courteous periphrase, 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 7 

or concealing both beneath the appropriate veil of a dead 
language, would speak of him as — Vir excellentissimus, strangu- 
landi peritus. 

In a Shrewsbury Address to James I., his loyal subjects 
expressed a wish that he might reign over them as long as sun, 
moon, and stars should endure. — " I suppose, then," observed 
the monarch, " they mean my successor to reign by candle- 
light." 

ADMIRATION — "We always love those who admire us, 
says Rochefoucauld, but we do not always love those whom 
we admire. From the latter clause an exception might have 
been made in favor of self, for self-love is the source of self- 
admiration ; and this is the safest of all loves, for most people 
may indulge it without the fear of a rival. 

ADYERSITY — is very often a blessing in disguise, which 
by detaching us from earth and drawing us towards heaven, 
gives us, in the assurance of lasting joys, an abundant recom- 
pense for the loss of transient ones. " Whom the Lord loveth 
he chasteneth." Many a man in losing his fortune has found 
himself, and been ruined into salvation ; for though God 
demands the whole heart, which we could not give him when 
we shared it with the world, he will never reject the broken 
one, which we offer him in our hour of sadness and reverse. 
Misfortunes are moral bitters, which frequently restore the 
healthy tone of the mind, after it has been cloyed and sickened 
by the sweets of prosperity. The spoilt children of the world, 
like their juvenile namesakes, are generally a source of unhap- 
piness to others, without being happy in themselves. 

ADMITTING yourself out of court, a legal phrase, signi- 
fying a liberality of concession to your opponent by which 
you destroy your own cause. This excess of candor was well 
illustrated by the Irishman, who boasted that he had often 
skated sixty miles a day. " Sixty miles ! " exclaimed an 
auditor — " that is a great distance : it must have been accom- 



8 THE TIN" TEUMPET. 

plished when the days were longest." — " To be- sure it was ; I 
admit that," cried the ingenious Hibernian. 

ADVICE — Almost the only commodity which the world 
is lavish in bestowing, and scrupulous in receiving, although 
it may be had gratis, with an allowance to those who take a 
quantity. "We seldom ask it until it is too late, and still more 
rarely take it while there is yet time to profit by it. Great 
tact and delicacy are required, either in conferring or seeking 
this perilous boon, for where people do not take your counsel 
they generally take offence ; and even where they do, you can 
never be sure that you have not given pain in giving advice. 
"We have our revenge for this injustice. If an acquaintance 
pursue some unfortunate course, in spite of our dissuasions, we 
feel more gratified by the confirmation of our evil auguries, 
than hurt by the misfortunes of our friend ; for that man must 
be a sturdy moralist who does not love his own judgment 
better than the interest of his neighbors. This may help to 
explain Rochefoucauld's dictum, that there is something, even 
in the misfortunes of our best friends, which is not altogether 
displeasing to us. 

To decline all advice, unless the example of the giver con- 
firms his precepts, would be about as sapient as if a traveller 
were to refuse to follow the directions of a finger-post, unless 
it drew its one leg out of the ground, and walked, or rather 
hopped after its own finger. 

Good Advice is one of those injuries which a good man 
ought, if possible, to forgive ; but at all events to forget at 
once. 

ADULTERER — One who has been guilty of perjury, com- 
monly accompanied with ingratitude and hypocrisy, an offence 
softened down by the courtesy of a sympathizing world, into 
" a man of gallantry, a gay person somowhat too fond of 
intrigue ; " or a woman " who has had a little slip, committed 
a faux pas,'' 1 &c. — "Pleasant but wrong," was the apology of 
the country squire, who being detected ill an intrigue with the 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 9 

frail rib of his groom, maintained that he had not offended 
against the law, since we are only commanded not to sin with 
another man's wife, whereas, this was his own man's wife. 

AFFECTION" — filial — an implanted instinct, exalted by a 
feeling of gratitude and a sense of duty. — The Eoman daughter 
who nourished her imprisoned father, when condemned to be 
starved to death, from her own breast, has generally been 
adduced as the noblest recorded instance of filial affection ; 
but the palm may almost be contested by an Irish son, if we 
may receive without suspicion the evidence of a fond and 
doting father — " Ah now, my darlint ! " exclaimed the latter, 
when his boy threatened to enlist in the army — " would you 
be laving your poor ould father that dotes upon ye ? You, the 
best and the most dutiful of all my children, and the only one 
that never struck me when I was down ! " 

AFFLICTION — A French writer, arguing, perhaps, from 
the analogy of the English language, wherein two negatives 
constitute an affirmative, observes that deux afflictions raises 
ensemble peuvent devenir une consolation, an experiment which 
few, we apprehend, will be anxious to try. Man has been 
termed the child of affliction, an affiliation of which the 
writer does not recognize the truth ; but for the benefit of 
those who hold a contrary opinion, he ventures to plagiarize a 
few stanzas versified from a prose apologue of Dr. Sheridan : 

Affliction one day, as she hark'd to the roar 

Of the stormy and struggling billow, 
Drew a beautiful form on the sands of the shore, 

With the branch of a weeping willow. 

Jupiter, struck with the noble plan, 

As he roamed on the verge of the ocean, 
Breathed on the figure, and calling it Man, 

Endued it with life- and motion. 

A creature so glorious in mind and in frame, 

So stamp'd with each parent's impression, 
Among them a point of contention became, 

Each claiming the right of possession. 

1* 



10 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

"He is mine," said Affliction ; " I gave him his hirth, 

I alone am his cause of creation " — 
" The materials were furnished by me," answered Earth — 
"I gave him," said Jove, "animation." 

The gods, all assembled in solemn divan, 

After hearing each claimant's petition, 
Pronounced a definitive verdict on man, 

And thus settled his fate's disposition. 

" Let Affliction possess her own child, till the woes 
Of life cease to harass and goad it ; 
After death give his body to earth, whence it rose, 
And his spirit to Jove, who bestowed it." 

AGE — old — an infirmity which nobody knows. Nothing 
can exceed our early impatience to escape from youth to man- 
hood, and appear older than we are, except our subsequent 
anxiety to obtain the reputation of being younger than we 
are. The first longing is natural, for Hope is before us, and 
it seems possible to anticipate that which we must soon reach ; 
but the second is a weakness, not less strange than general, for 
we cannot expect to recover that from which we are per- 
petually flying, or avoid that to which we are incessantly 
approaching. If by putting back our own date we could arrest 
the great clock of time, there would be an intelligible motive 
for our conduct. Alas ! the time-piece of old Chronos never 
stops. 

Women, who imagine their influence to depend upon their 
personal attractions, naturally wish to preserve their youth. 
It is in their power to do so ; for she who captivates the heart 
and the understanding, never grows old : and as men are 
generally estimated by their moral and intellectual, rather than 
their baptismal recommendations ; as a philosopher of fifty is 
preferred, by all those whose preference is worth having, to 
a fool of twenty, there is something very contemptible in a 
male horror of senility. So prevalent, however, is the feeling, 
that, with the exception of one individual, who has obtained an 
enviable immortality as " middle age LTallam," we have no 
chronology for man and women at, or beyond the meridian of 
life. They are all " persons of a certain age," which is the most 



THE TIN TEUMPET. 11 

uncertain one upon record. Complimentary in every thing, the 
French say of a woman thus circumstanced, that she is fernme 
tiPun age raisonnable, as if she had gained, in her reasoning 
faculties, what she had lost in personal charms ; and this, 
douhtless, ought to he the process with us all. To our mind, as 
to a preserving green-house, should we transfer, in the winter 
of life, the attractions of our spring and summer. 

As variety is universally allowed to he pleasing, the diver- 
sity occasioned by the progress of age should, in itself, he a 
source of delight. Perpetual sunshine would soon he found 
more annoying than an alternation of the seasons ; so would 
a continuous youth be more irksome than the gradual approach 
of old age. Existence may be compared to a drum, which has 
only one single tone ; but change of time gives it variety and 
cheerfulness enough. 

The infirmity of falsifying our age is at least as old as 
Cicero, who, hearing one of his contemporaries attempting to 
make himself ten years younger than he really was, drily 
observed — " Then at the time you and I were at school to- 
gether, you were not born." 

ALCHEMIST — The true possessor of the philosopher's 
stone is the miner, whose iron, copper, and tin, are always 
convertible into the more prceious metals. Agriculture is the 
noblest of all alchemy, for it turns earth, and even manure into 
gold, conferring upon its cultivator the additional reward of 
health. Most appropriate was the rebuke of Pope Leo X., 
who, when a visionary pretended to have discovered the phi- 
losopher's stone, and demanded a recompense, gave him an 
empty purse. 

ALDERMAN" — A ventri-potential citizen, into whose med- 
iterranean mouth good things are perpetually flowing, although 
none come out. His shoulders, like some of the civic streets, 
are " widened at the expense of the corporation." He resem- 
bles Wolsey ; not in ranking himself with princes, but in being 
a man " of an unbounded stomach." A tooth is the only 
wise thing in his head, and he has nothing particularly good 



12 THE TIN TEUMPET. 

about him except his digestion, which is an indispensable 
quality, since he is destined to become great by gormandizing, 
to masticate his way to the Mansion-house, and thus, like a 
mouse in a cheese, to provide for himself a large dwelling, by 
continually eating. His talent is in his jaws ; and like a mil- 
ler, the more he grinds the more he gets. From the quantity 
he devours, it might be supposed that he had two stomachs, 
like a cow, were it not manifest that he is no ruminating an- 
imal. 

ALMS — To this word there is no singular, in order to 
teach us that a solitary act of charity scarcely deserves the 
name. Nothing is won by one gift. To render our bounties 
available, they must be in the plural number. It is always 

wise to be charitable, but it is almost peculiar to my friend L 

that he is often witty in his bounties. He was about to assist 
with a sum of money a scribbler in distress, when he was re- 
minded that he had on more than one occasion been libelled 
and maligned by the intended object of his bounty. " Pooh," 

said L , " I have so long known all his slanders by heart, 

that they have quite gone out of my head." 

ALPHABET — Twenty-six symbols which represent singly, 
or in combination, all the sounds of all the languages upon 
earth. By forming letters into words, which are the signs of 
ideas, we are enabled to embody thought, to render it visible, 
audible, perpetual, and ubiquitous. Embalmed in writing, the 
intellect may thus enjoy a species of immortality upon earth, 
and every man may paint an imperishable portrait of his own 
mind, immeasurably more instructive and interesting to pos- 
terity than those fleeting likenesses of the face and form en- 
trusted to canvas, or even to bronze and marble. "What 
myriads have passed away, body and mind, leaving not a 
wreck behind them, while the mental features of some con- 
temporary writer survive in all the freshness and integrity 
with which they were first traced. Were I a literary painter 
how often should I be tempted in the pride of my heart, to 

Ed io anche sono Pittore." 



THE TIN TKUMPET. 13 

Although the word be derived from the two first letters 
of the Greek, every alphabet dow in use may be traced 
with historical certainty to one original — the Phenician or 
Syriac. " Phenicia and Palestine," says Gibbon, " will for- 
ever live in the memory of mankind ; since America, as well 
as Europe, has received letters from the one and religion from 
the other." 

One of the earliest French princes being too indolent or 
too stupid to acquire his alphabet by the ordinary process, 
twenty-four servants were placed in attendance upon him, 
each with a huge letter painted upon his stomach; as he 
knew not their names he was obliged to call them by their 
letter when he wanted their services, which in due time gave 
him the requisite degree of literature for the exercise of the 
royal functions. 

AMBIGUITY — A quality deemed essentially necessary to 
the clear understanding of diplomatic writings, acts of Con- 
gress, and law proceedings. 

AMBITION — A mental dropsy, which keeps continually 
swelling and increasing until it kills its victim. Ambition is 
often overtaken by calamity, because it is not aware of its 
pursuer, and never looks behind. "Deeming naught done 
while aught remains to do," it is necessarily restless ; unable 
to bear any thing above it, discontent must be its inevitable 
portion, for even if the pinnacle of worldly power be gained, 
its occupant will sigh, like Alexander, for another globe to 
conquer. Every day that brings us some advancement or 
success, brings us also a day nearer to death, embittering the 
reflection, that the more we have gained, the more we have 
to relinquish. Aspiring to nothing but humility, the wise 
man will make it the height of his ambition to be unambitious. 
As he cannot effect all that he wishes, he will only wish for 
that which he can effect. 

AMBLE — Of this indefinite and intermediate pace, which, 
(to adopt the Johnsonian style,) " without the concussiveness 



14 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

of the trot, or the celerity of the canter, neither contributes 
to the conservation of health, nor to the economy of time, 
nothing can be pronounced in eulogy, and little, therefore, 
need be said in description." To those elderly gentlemen, 
nevertheless, who are willing to sacrifice the perilous reputa- 
tion of a good seat for the comfort of a safe one ; an ambling 
nag has always been an equestrian beatitude. Such was the 
feeling of the Sexagenarian, who took his horse to the menage, 
that it might be taught the " old gentleman's pace." As the 
riding-master, after several trials, could not immediately suc- 
ceed in his object, the owner of the animal petulantly cried 
out—" Zooks, Sir, do you call this an amble ? "— " No, Sir," 
was the reply, " I call it a pre-amble." 

ANCESTRY— 

" They who on length of ancestry enlarge, 
Produce their debt instead of their discharge." 

They search in the root of the tree for those fruits which the 
branches ought to produce, and too often resemble potatoes, 
of which the best part is under ground. Pedigree is the boast 
of those who have nothing else to vaunt. In what respect, 
after all, are they superior to the humblest of their neigh- 
bors? Every man's ancestors double at each remove" in geo- 
metrical proportion, so that, after only twenty generations, he 
has above a million of progenitors. A duke has no more ; a 
dustman has no less. 

A river generally becomes narrower and more insignifi- 
cant as we ascend to its source. The stream of ancestry, on 
the contrary, often vigorous, pure, and powerful at its fountain 
head, usually becomes more feeble, shallow, and corrupt as it 
flows downwards. Some of our ancient families, whose origin 
is lost in the darkness of antiquity, and into whose hungry 
maws the tide of patronage is forever flowing, may be com- 
pared to the Nile, which has many mouths, and no discovera- 
ble head. Nobles sometimes illustrate that name about as 
much as an Italian Cicerone recalls that idea of Cicero. 

It is a double shame for a man to have derived distinction 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 15 

from his predecessors, if he bequeath disgrace to his pos- 
terity. 

" Heraldic honors on the base, 

Do but degrade their wearers more, 
As sweeps, whom May-day trappings grace, 
Show ten times blacker than before." 

ANCIENTS — Dead bones used for the purpose of knock- 
ing down live flesh. Every puny Samson thinks he may 
wield his ass's jaw-bone in assaulting his contemporaries, by 
comparing them with their predecessors. If architects at- 
tempt any thing original, they are ridiculed for their pains, 
and desired to stick to the five orders. This is the sixth order 
of the public. If artists follow the bent of their own genius, 
they are tauntingly referred by their new masters to the old 
masters, and desired not to indulge their own crude capriccios. 
Authors are schooled and catechized in the same way ; but 
when either of the three conform to the instructions of their 
critics, they are instantly and unmercifully assailed as servile 
imitators, without a single grain of originality. Whether, 
therefore, they allow the ancients to be imitable or inimitable, 
it is manifest that they only exalt them in order to lower 
their contemporaries, and that their suffrages would be re- 
versed, if the ancients and moderns were to change places. 
"With a similar jealousy we give a preference to old wine, old 
books, and an old friend, unless the latter should appear in 
the form of an old joke, when he is treated with the utmost 
6Corn and contumely. As this is equally reprehensible and 
inconsistent, I shall endeavor to cure my readers of any such 
propensity, by habituating them to encounters with some of 
their old Joe Miller acquaintance. 

ANGER — Punishing ourselves for the faults of another ; 
or committing an additional error, if we are incensed at our 
own mistakes. In either case, wrath may aggravate, but was 
never known to diminish our annoyance. "I wish," says 
Seneca, " that anger could always be exhausted, when its first 
weapon was broken, and that like the bees, who leave their 
stings in the wound they make, we could only inflict a single 



16 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

injury." To a certain extent this wish is often fulfilled, for 
the same writer observes, that anger is like a ruin, which, in 
falling upon its victim, breaks itself to pieces. 

"Without any other armor than an offended frown, an 
indignant eye, and a rebuking voice, decrepit age, timid 
womanhood, the weakest of our species, may daunt the most 
daring ; for there is something formidable in the mere sight 
of wrath ; even where it is incapable of inflicting any chas- 
tisement upon its provoker. It has thus a preventive opera- 
tion, by making us cautious of calling it forth, and restrains 
more effectually by the fear of its ebullitions, than it could by 
their actual outbreakings ; while it still retains a positive in- 
fluence when aroused. Anger, in short, is a moral power, 
which tends to repair the inequalities of physical power, and 
to approximate the strong and the weak towards the same 
level. 

So carefully, however, are our constitutional instincts 
guarded against abuse, that the moral and physical vigor im- 
parted to us by anger as a salutary means of defence, is im- 
mediately lessened, when by its intemperate and reckless 
exercise, we would pervert it into a dangerous instrument of 
aggression. Blind and ungovernable rage, approaching to the 
nature of madness, not only obscures the reason, but often 
paralyzes, for the moment, the bodily energies ; a paroxysm 
which fortunately serves as a protection both to ourselves and 
others. This seasonable arrest of our functions gives us time 
to sanify, and we are allowed to recover them, when their 
exercise is no longer dangerous. Protective nature makes us 
sometimes blind and weak, when highly excited ; for the same 
reason that the fleet grayhound has no sense of smell, and the 
quick-scented bloodhound no swiftness of foot. 

Queen Elizabeth discovered qualities in anger which may 
not be obvious to common observers. "What does a man 
think of when he thinks of nothing? " her Majesty demanded 
of a choleric courtier, to whom she had not realized her prom- 
ise of promotion. " He thinks, madam, of a woman's prom- 
ise," was the tart reply. " Well, I must not confute him," 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 17 

said the Queen, walking away, " anger makes men witty, but 
it keeps them poor." 

ANGLER — A fish-butcher— a piscatory assassin — a Jack 
Ketch — catcher of Jack, an impaler of live worms, frogs, and 
flies, a torturer of trout, a killer of carp, and a great gudgeon 
who sacrifices the best part of his life in taking aWay the life 
of a little gudgeon. Every thing appertaining to the angler's 
art, is cowardly, .cruel, treacherous, and cat-like. He is a 
professional dealer in " treasons, stratagems, and plots ;" more 
subtle and sneaking than a poacher, and more exclusively de- 
voted to snares, traps, and subterfuges ; he is at the same time 
infinitely more remorseless, finding amusement and delight in 
prolonging, to the last gasp, the agonies of the impaled bait, 
and of the wretched fish writhing with a barb in its entrails. 

The high priest of anglers is that demure destroyer, old 
Izaak "Walton, who may be literally termed the Hookek of 
their piscatory polity. Because he could write a line as well 
as throw one, they would persuade themselves that he has 
shed a sort of classical dignity on their art, and even asso- 
ciated it with piety and poetry, — what profanation! The 
poet is not only a lover of his species, but of all sentient 
beiDgs, because he "looks through nature up to Nature's 
God." But how can an angler be pious ! How can a tor- 
mentor of the creature be a lover of the Creator ? Away 
with such cant ! Old Izaak must either have been a demure 
hypocrite, or a blockhead, unaware of the gross inconsistency 
between his profession and his practice. If he saw a fine 
trout, and wished to trouble him with a line, just to say he 
should be very happy to see him to dinner, he must first tor- 
ture his postman, the bait, and make him carry the letters of 
Bellerophon. Hark how tenderly the gentle ruffian gives di- 
rections for baiting with a frog : u Put your hook through 
the mouth, and out of his gills, and then with a fine needle 
and silk, sew the upper part of his leg, with only one stitch to 
the arming wire of the hook, and in so doing, use him as 
though you loved him.'' 1 



18 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

Tender hearted Izaak ! — "What would be his treatment of 
animals whom he did not love ? 

An angler may be meditative, or rather musing, but let 
him not ever think that he thinks, for if he had the healthy 
power of reflection, he could not be an angler. If sensible 
and amiable men are still to be seen squatted for hours in a 
punt, "like patience on a monument smiling at grief," they 
are as much out of their element as the fish in their basket, 
and could only be reconciled to their employment by a reso- 
lute blinking of the question. In one of the admirable papers 
of the "Indicator," Leigh Hunt says — "We really cannot see 
what equanimity there is in jerking a lacerated carp out of 
the water by the jaws, merely because it has not the power of 
making a noise ; for we presume, that the most philosophic of 
anglers would hardly delight in catching shrieking fish." This 
is not so clear. Old Izaak, their patriarch, would have prob- 
ably maintained that the shriek was a cry of pleasure. We 
willingly leave the anglers to their rod, for they deserve it, 
and we allow them to defend one another, not only because 
they have no other advocates, but because we are sure that 
the rest of the community would be glad to see them Jiang 
together, especially if they should make use of their own lines. 

Averse as we are from extending the sphere of the angler's 
cruelty, we will mention one fish which old Izaak himself had 
never caught. A wealthy tradesman having ordered a fish- 
pond at his country house to be cleared out, the foreman dis- 
covered, at the bottom, a spring of ferruginous colored water ; 
and, on returning to the house, told his employer that they 
had found a chalybeate. " I am glad of it," exclaimed the 
worthy citizen, " for I never saw one. Put it in the basket 
with the other fish, I'll come and look at it presently." 

ANNUALS — illustrated. — The second childhood of litera- 
ture, the patrons of which carefully look over the plates, and 
studiously overlook the letter-press. Its object is to substitute 
the visible for the imaginative, a sensual for an intellectual' 
pleasure, and to teach us to read engravings instead of writ- 
ings. 



THE TIN TETJMPET. 19 

ANSWERS — to the point are more satisfactory to the 
interrogator, but answers from the point may be sometimes 
more entertaining to the auditor. " Were you born in wed- 
lock ? " asked a counsel of a witness. " No, Sir, in Devon- 
shire," was the reply. — " Young woman," said a magistrate to 
a girl who was about to be sworn, " why do you hold the 
book upside down ? " — " I am obliged, Sir, because I am left- 
handed." — See Josephus Molitor. A written non sequitur, not 
less amusing, was involved in the postscript of the man who 
hoped his correspondent would excuse faults of spelling, if 
any, as he had no knife to mend his pens. 

ANTINOMIANS— An antithesis to the Society for the Sup- 
pression of Vice. If we did not know that the best things 
perverted become the worst, we might wonder that the Chris- 
tian religion should have ever generated a sect, whose doc- 
trines are professedly anti-moral. Many, however, are still to 
be found, who, maintaining that the moral law is nothing to 
man, and that he is not bound to obey it, avow an open 
contempt for good works, and affirm, that as God sees no sin 
in believers, they are neither obliged to confess it, nor to pray 
for its forgiveness. In this most perilous spirit many tracts 
have been published, 

" Which, in the semblance of devotion, 

Allure their victim to offence, 
And then administer a potion, 

To soothe and lull his conscience ; 
Teaching him, that to break all ties, 
May be a wholesome sacrifice ; 
That saints, like bowls, may go astray, 
Better to win the proper way ; 
Indulge in every sin at times, 

To prove that grace is never lacking: 
And purify themselves by crimes, 

As dirty shoes are cleaned by blacking." 

ANTIQUARY — Too often a collector of valuables that are 
worth nothing, and a recollector of all that Time has been glad 
to forget. His choice specimens have become rarities, simply 
because they were never worth preserving ; and he attaches 



20 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

present importance to them in exact proportion to their for- 
mer insignificance. A worthy of this unworthy class was 
once edifying the French Academy with a most unmerciful 
detail of the comparative prices of commodities at various 
remote periods, when La Fontaine observed, " Our friend 
knows the value of every thing, — except time." "We recom- 
mend this anecdote to the special consideration of the ci-devant 
members of the Roxburgh Club, as well as to the resuscitators 
of the dead lumber of antiquity. 

ANTIQUITY — The stalking horse on which knaves and 
bigots invariably mount, when they want to ride over the 
timid and the credulous. Never do we hear so much solemn 
palaver about the time-hallowed institutions, and approved 
wisdom of our ancestors, as when attempts are made to re- 
move some staring monument of their folly. Thus is the 
youth, nonage, ignorance, and inexperience of the world in- 
vested by a strange blunder, which Bacon was the first to 
indicate, with the reverence due to the present times, which 
are its true old age. 

Antiquity is the* young miscreant, the type of commingled 
ignorance and tyranny, who massacred prisoners taken in 
war, sacrificed human beings to idols, burnt them in Smith- 
field as heretics or witches, believed in astrology, demonology, 
sorcery, the philosopher's stone, and every exploded folly and 
enormity; although his example is still gravely urged as a 
rule of conduct, and a standing argument against innovation, 
— that is to say, improvement ! If the seal of time were to 
be the signet of truth, there is no absurdity, oppression, or 
falsehood, that might not be received as gospel ; while the 
Gospel itself would want the more ancient warrant of Pagan- 
ism. Never was the world so old, and consequently so wise, 
as it is to-day ; but it will be older, and, therefore, still wiser, 
to-morrow. 

In one generation, the most ancient individual has gener- 
ally the most experience ; but in a succession of generations, 
the youngest, or last of them, is the real Methuselah and Men- 
tor. To this obvious distinction, nothing can blind us but 



THE TIN TEUMPET. 21 

gross stupidity, or the most miserable cant. To plead the 
authority of the ancients, is to appeal from civilized and en- 
lightened Christians, to fierce, unlettered Pagans ; for no one 
has decided where this boasted wisdom begins or ends, though 
all agree that it is of great age. Every elderly man is an an- 
cestor to his former self. Let him compare his boyish notions 
and feelings with his matured judgment, and he will form a 
pretty correct notion of the wisdom of our ancestors; for 
what the child is to the man, are the past generations to the 
present. 

Let us learn to distinguish the uses from the abuses of an- 
tiquity. Not to know what happened before we were born, is 
always to remain a child : to know, and blindly to adopt that 
knowledge, as an implicit rule of life, is never to be a man. 

APOLOGY — As great a peacemaker as the word "if." 
In all cases, it is an excuse rather than an exculpation, and if 
adroitly managed, may be made to confirm what it seems to 
recall, and to aggravate the offence which it pretends to ex- 
tenuate. A man who had accused his neighbor of falsehood, 
was called on for an apology, which he gave in the following 
amphibological terms : — " I called you a liar, — it is true. 
You spoke truth : I have told a lie." 

APPEARANCES — keeping up. A moral, or, rather, im- 
moral uttering of counterfeit coin. It is astonishing how 
much human bad money is current in society, bearing the fair 
impress of ladies and gentlemen. The former, if carefully 
weighed, will always be found light, or you may presently de- 
tect if you ring them, though this is a somewhat perilous 
experiment. Both may be known by their assuming a more 
gaudy and showy appearance than their neighbors, as if 
their characters were brighter, their impressions more perfect, 
and their composition more pure, than all others. 

APPETITE — a relish bestowed upon the poorer classes, 
that they may like what they eat, while it is seldom enjoyed 
by the rich, because they may eat what they like. 



22 THE TIN TKUMPET. 

ARCHITECTURE— Why we should continue to enslave 
ourselves to the five orders of Yitruvius, I cannot well see. 
To the art of the statuary there is a conceivable limit, but that 
of the architect seems to admit a much wider range, and 
greater variety, than can he circumscribed within five orders. 
All structures should be adapted to the climate. 

Is there any valid reason why the Doric capital should be 
peculiar to a pillar whose height is precisely eight diameters, 
the Ionic volute to one of nine, and the Corinthian foliage to 
one of ten ? Custom has assigned these ornaments and pro- 
portions, but one can imagine others which would be equally, 
or, perhaps, more agreeable to an unprejudiced eye. The first 
columns were undoubtedly trees, which diminished as they 
ascended. The stems of the branches, where they were cut 
off, suggested the capital ; the iron or other bandages at top 
and bottom, to prevent the splitting of the wood, were the 
origin of the fillets ; the square tile which protected the lower 
end from the wet, gave rise to the plinth. But why should a 
stone pillar be made to imitate a tree, by lessening as it rises ? 
Custom alone has reconciled us to an unmeaning deviation, 
which throws all the inter-columnar spaces out of the perpen- 
dicular, and presents us with a series of long inverted cones, 
the most ungraceful of all forms. As if sensible of this defect, 
the Egyptians made the outline of some of their temples con- 
form to the diminution of the columns, rendering the whole 
structure slightly pyramidical, and thus preserving the consist- 
ency of its lines. 

Observing some singular pilasters at Harrowgate, sur- 
mounted with the Cornua Ammonis, I ventured to ask the 
builder to what order they belonged. "Why, Sir," he re- 
plied, putting his hand to his head, " the horns are a little 
order of my own." Knowing him to be a married man, I 
concluded that he had good reason for appropriating that pe- 
culiar ornament to himself, and made no further objections to 
his architecture. 

ARGUMENT — With fools, passion, vociferation, or vio- 
lence ; with ministers, a majority ; with kings, the sword ; with 
fanatics, denunciation ; with men of sense, a sound reason. 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 23 

AKISTOCEAOY — In ancient Greece this word signified 
the government of the best ; but in modern England the term 
seems to have fairly " turned its back upon itself," and to have 
become the antithesis to its original import ; even as beldam, 
(or lelle dame,) formerly expressive of female beauty, is now 
defined by Dr. Johnson as, "a term of contempt, marking the 
last degree of old age with all its faults and miseries." 

If we have noblemen whose titles are their honor, we have 
others who are an honor to their titles. Happy he, who, 
deriving his patent from nature, as well as from his sovereign, 
may be dubbed, " inter doctos nobilissimus, — inter nodiles doc- 
tusimus, — inter utrosque opti'mus" 

ARITHMETIC — The science of figures cuts but a poor 
figure in its origin, the term calculation being derived from 
the calculus or pebble used as a counter by the Eomans, 
whose numerals, stolen from the ancient Etruscans, and still 
to be traced on the monuments of that people, seem to have 
been suggested in the first instance by the five fingers. In- 
deed, the term digit or finger, applied to any single number, 
sufficiently indicates the primitive mode of counting. The 
Roman V is a rude outline of the five fingers, or of the out- 
spread hand, narrowing to the wrist ; while the X is a symbol 
of the two fives, or two hands crossed. In all probability the 
earliest numerals did not exceed five, which was repeated, with^ 
additions, for the higher numbers; and it is a remarkable 
coincidence that to express six, seven, eight, the North Amer- 
ican Indians repeat the five, with the addition of one, two, 
three, on the same plan as the Roman VI., VII., VIII. Our 
term eleven is derived from the word ein or one, and the old 
verb liben, to leave ; so that it signifies one, leave ten. Twelve 
means two, after reckoning or laying aside ten ; and our ter- 
mination of ty, in the words twenty, thirty, &c, comes from 
the Anglo-Saxon teg, to draw; so that twenty, or twainty, 
signifies two drawings, or that the fingers have been twice 
counted over, and the hands twice closed. 

From the hands also, or other parts of the human body, 
were derived the original rude measurements. The uncia, or 



24 THE TIN TEUMPET. 

inch, was the first joint of the thumb, which being repeated 
four times, gave the breadth of the hand ; and this product 
trippled, furnished the measure of the foot. The passus, or 
pace, was the interval between two steps, reckoned at six 
feet ; and a mile, as the word imports, consisted of a thousand 
paces. Other portions of the human body furnished secondary- 
measures ; the width of the hand gave the palm, reckoned at 
three inches : — the distances of the elbow from the tips of 
the fingers, the cubit ; the entire length of the arm, the yard ; 
and the extreme breadth of the extended arm, across the 
shoulders, the fathom, or six feet. 

The Arabic numerals, derived, in all probability, from the 
Persians, and brought into Europe by the Moors, were a great 
improvement upon the clumsy system of the Eomans ; but it 
is to be regretted that we have not adopted the duodecimal in 
preference to the decimal scale, as it mounts faster, and being 
more often divisible in the desending series, would express 
fractions with a great simplicity. 

ART — Man's nature. Of all cants defend me from that 
cant of Art which substitutes a blind and indiscriminate rev- 
erence of the painter, provided he be dead, for a judicious 
admiration of his paintings. Our connoisseurs reverse the 
old adage, and prefer a dead dog to a living lion. They are 
.Antinomian in their critical creed ; they susbstitute faith for 
good works, and will fall prostrate before any daub provided it 
be sanctified by a popular name. 

It may be objected that no artist would have acquired a 
great name unless he had been a great painter ; a position to 
which there are exceptions, although we will grant it for the 
sake of argument. But an artist who might command uni- 
versal admiration in the olden times, is no necessary model 
for the present. Surely our protrait painters need not study 
Holbein. Many of the old masters, avowedly deficient in 
drawing and composition, were celebrated for their coloring, 
a merit which the mere effects of time, in the course of three 
or four centuries, must inevitably destroy; and yet Titian, 
the great colorist of his day, but whose pictures have mostly 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 25 

faded into a eold dimness, is still held up to admiration, be- 
cause his bright and blended hues delighted the good folks of 
the fifteenth century. The pictures of Eubens preserve the 
richness of their broad tints, which we can admire without 
being blind to the vulgarity of his taste and his bad drawing, 
for his females are little better than so many Dutch Yrowes — 
coarse, flabby, and clownish. To a genuine connoisseur, how- 
ever, every one of them is, doubtless, a Yenus de Medici ; not 
because she is handsome or well-proportioned, for she is 
neither, but because she is painted by Eubens. 

This idolatry of the artist and indifference to art, has 
had a very mischievous effect in England, first, by withdraw- 
ing encouragement from our countrymen and contemporaries, 
and, secondly, by injuring their taste in holding up as models 
for imitation, not the paintings of nature, but old Continental 
pictures, which, even supposing them to be genuine, have often 
lost the sole distinction that once conferred a value upon them. 
But in many instances they are spurious, for the high prices 
which we so absurdly lavish upon them, has called into ex- 
istence, in the chief Italian towns, manufactories of copies 
and counterfeits for the sole supply of England, in which 
happy and discerning country may be found ten times more 
pictures of each of the old masters than could have been 
painted in a long life. Neither the most experienced artist, 
nor knowing virtuoso, can guard against this species of impo- 
* sition. It is well known that Sir Joshua Eeynolds, even in 
that branch of the art with which he was most conversant, 
was perpetually deceived, his collections swarming with false 
Correggios, Titians, and Michael Angelos. "What wonder, 
then, that an old picture, as often happens, shall sell to-day 
for a thousand pounds, and that to-morrow, stripped of its 
supposed authenticity, stat nominis umbra, and shall not fetch 
ten ? and yet it is as good and as bad one day as it was the 
other, viewed as a work of art. So besotting is the magic of 
a name. 

To these pseudo-connoisseurs, who bring their own nar- 
row professional feelings to the appreciation of a work of art, 
we recommend the following authentic anecdote : — A thriving 
2 



26 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

tailor, anxious to transmit his features to posterity, inquired 
of a young artist what were Ms terms for a half length. " I 
charge twenty-five guineas for a head," was the reply. The 
protrait was painted and approved, when the knight of the 
thimble, taking out his purse, demanded how much he was 
to pay. " I told you before that my charge for a head was 
twenty-five guineas." — "I am aware of that," said Snip; 
" but how much more for the coat ? — it is the best part of 
the picture." 

ASCETIC — Dr. Johnson has observed that the shortness 
of life has afforded as many arguments to the voluptuary as 
to the moralist, and there can be no doubt that the ascetic, in 
his cell, is seeking his own happiness with as much selfishness 
as the professed epicurean : one betakes himself to immediate, 
the other to remote gratifications ; one devotes himself to sen- 
suality, the other to mortification ; one to bodily, the other, 
perhaps, to intellectual pleasures ; one to this world, the other 
to the next ; but the principle of action is the same in both 
parties, and the ascetic is, perhaps, the most selfish calculator 
of the two, inasmuch as the reward he claims is infinitely 
greater and of longer endurance. He is usurious in his deal- 
ing with heaven, and does not put out the smallest mortifica- 
tion except upon the most enormous interest. His very self- 
denial is selfish, for the odds are incalculably in favor of the 
man who bets body against soul. 

They who imperiously imagine that the happiness of the 
Creator consists in the unhappiness of the creature, are thus 
offending Him in their very fear of giving offence, since they 
find sweetness even in their sourness, and a joy in the very 
want of it. Well for them, too, if they go not astray, in their 
over anxiety to walk straight. " As for those that will not 
take lawful pleasures," says old Fuller, " I am afraid they will 
take unlawful pleasure, and by lacing themselves too hard, 
grow awry on one side." 

To the same purport we may quote the observation of the 
French writer, Balzac : "Si ceuxqui sont ennemis des diver tisse- 
mens honnetes avoient la direction du monde. Us voudroient 



THE TEST TRUMPET. 27 

dter le printemps et la jeunesse, — Vun de Vannee. et V autre de 
la vie." If these enemies of innocent amusement had the 
ruling of the world, they would abolish spring-time and 
youth — the one from the year, the other from life. 

ATHEIST — Supposing such an anomaly to exist, an athe- 
ist must be the most miserable of beings. The idea of a 
fatherless world, swinging by some blind law of chance, 
which may every moment expose it to destruction, through 
an infinite space, filled, perhaps, with nothing but suffering 
and wretchedness, unalleviated by the prospect of a future 
and a happier state, must be almost intolerable to a man who 
has a single spark of benevolence in his bosom. " All the 
splendor of the highest prosperity," says Adam Smith, "can 
never enlighten the gloom with which so dreadful an idea 
must necessarily overshadow the imagination ; nor in a wise 
and virtuous man can all the sorrow of the most afflicting ad- 
versity ever dry up the joy which necessarily springs from the 
habitual and thorough conviction of the truth of the contrary 
system." 

The word atheist has done yeoman's service as a nick-name 
wherewith to pelt all those who disapprove of the thirty-nine 
articles, or who venture to surmise that there are abuses in 
the Church which need reform ; but this sort of dirt has been 
thrown until it will no longer stick, except to the fingers of 
those who handle it. The real atheist is the Mammonite, 
who, making " godliness a great gain," worships a golden calf, 
and calls it a God : or the miserable fanatic, who, endowing the 
phantom of his own folly and fear with the worst passions of 
the worst men, dethrones the deity to set up a demon, and 
curses all those who will not curse themselves by joining in 
his idolatry. 

AUDIENCE — A crowd of people in a large theatre, so 
called because they cannot hear. The actors speak to them 
with their hands and feet, and the spectators listen to them 
with their eyes. 



28 THE TIN TEUMPET. 

AUTHOK — original — One who, copying only from the 
works of the great Author of the world, never plagiarises, 
except from the book of nature ; whereas the imitator derives 
his inspiration from the writings of his fellow-men, and has no 
thought except as to the best mode of purloining the thoughts 
of others. Authors are lamps, exhausting themselves to give 
light to others ; or rather may they be compared to industri- 
ous bees, not because they are armed with a sting, but because 
they gather honey from every flower, only that their hive may 
be plundered when their toil is completed. By the iniquitous 
law of copyright, an author's property in the offspring of his 
own intellect, is wrested from him in the end of a few years ; 
previously to which period, the bookseller is generally oblig- 
ing enough to ease him of the greater portion of the profit. 

Against the former injustice, however, most writers secure 
themselves by the evanescent nature of their works ; and as 
to the latter, we must confess after all, that the bookseller is 
the best Maecenas. 

For the flattery lavished upon a first successful work, an 
author often pays dearly by the abuse poured upon its succes- 
sors ; for we all measure ourselves by our best production, 
and others by their worst. "Writers are too often treated by 
the public, as crimps serve recruits, — made drunk first, only 
that they may be safely rattaned all the rest of their lives. 

An author is more annoyed by abuse than gratified by 
praise ; because he looks upon the latter as a right and the 
former as a wrong. And this opens a wider question as to 
the constitution of our nature, both moral and physical, which 
is susceptible of pain in a much greater and more intense de- 
gree than of pleasure. We have no bodily enjoyment to 
counterbalance the agony of an acute tooth-ache ; nor any 
mental one that can form a set-off against despair. Nowhere 
is this more glaringly illustrated than in the descriptions of our 
future rewards and punishments, the miseries and the anguish 
of hell being abundantly definite and intelligible, while the 
heavenly beatitudes are dimly shadowed forth, as being beyond 
the imagination of man to conceive. 

An author's living purgatory is his liability to be consulted 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 29 

as to the productions of literary amateurs, both, male and fe- 
male. The annoyance of reading them can only be equalled 
by that of pronouncing upon their merits. Oh, that every 
scribbler would recollect the dictum of Dr. Johnson upon this 
subject: " You must consider beforehand, that such effusions 
may be bad as well as good ; and nobody has a right to put 
another under such a difficulty, that he must either hurt the 
person by telling the truth, or hurt himself by telling what is 
not true." 

Between authors and artists there should be no jealousy, 
for their pursuits are congenial ; one paints with the pen, the 
other writes with a brush ; and yet it is difficult for either to be 
quite impartial, in weighing the merits of their different avo- 
cations. The author of the " Pleasures of Hope," being at a 
dinner party with Mr. Turner, E. A., whose enthusiasm for 
his art led him to speak of it and of its professors as superior to 
all others, the bard arose, and after alluding with mock grav- 
ity to his friend's skill in varnishing painters as well as paint- 
ings, proposed the health of Mr. Turner, and the worshipful 
company of Painters and Glaziers. This (to use the newspa- 
per phrase) called up Mr. Turner, who with a similar solem- 
nity expressed his sense of the honor he had received, made 
some good-humored allusions to blotters of foolscap, whose 
works were appropriately bound in calf ; and concluded by 
proposing in return, the health of Mr. Campbell, and the 
worshipful company of Paper-stainers — a rejoinder that ex- 
cited a general laugh, in which none joined more heartily than 
the poet himself. 

AUTHOES — origin of— a most difficult question to decide. 
For if there were no readers there certainly would be no 
writers. Clearly, therefore, the existence of writers depends 
upon the existence of readers ; and of course, as the cause 
must be antecedent to the effect, readers existed before 
writers. Yet, on the other hand, if there were no writers 
there could be no readers, so it should appear that writers 
must be antecedent to readers. This seems much on a par 
with the profound discovery of Lucretius, that eyes were 



30 THE TIN TKUMPET. 

not made to see with, but being formed by a fortuitous con- 
currence of atoms, sight followed as an unforeseen accident ; 
for, quoth he , if eyes were made to see withal, then seeing 
must have existed before eyes, and if seeing existed before 
eyes, what could be the use of eyes ; and if seeing did not 
exist before eyes, how could eyes be made for that which is 
not — that is, for nothing ? Clearly, therefore, eyes were not 
made to see with. In the same dilemma appears the matter 
of reading and writing. Perhaps it is safest to say that both 
are results of a fortuitous concurrence of atoms. 

AUTO-BIOGRAPHY— Drawing a portrait of yourself 
with a pen and ink, carefully omitting all the bad features 
that you have, and putting in all the good ones that you have 
not, so as to ensure an accurate and faithful likeness ! Pub- 
lishing your own authentic life in telling flattering lies of 
yourself, in order, if possible, to prevent others from telling 
disparaging truths. . No man's life is complete till he is dead, 
an auto-biography is therefore a mis-nomer. As such works, 
however, generally fall still-born from the press, an author 
may fairly be said to have lost his life as soon as he is deliv- 
ered of it, so that this objection is, in fact, removed. 

AUTO DE P£ — oe act of faith — Eoasting our fellow 
creatures alive, for the honor and glory of a God of mercy. 
The horrors of this diabolical spectacle, which was invariably 
beheld by both sexes and all ages with transports of triumph 
and delight, should eternally be borne in mind, that we may 
see to what brutal extremities intolerance will push us, if it 
be not checked in the very outset. Thanks to the progress of 
opinion, the inquisition and its tortures are abolished ; but 
fanatics, whether Romish or Reformed, still reserve the right, 
of punishing heretics, (that is all those who differ from them- 
selves on religious points,) with fire, pillory, imprisonment, 
and odium in this world; while they carefully retain the 
parting curse of the inquisition, " Jam animam tuam tradi- 
mvs Didbolo" and consign them to eternal fire in the next. 
This moral inquisition remains yet to be suppressed. It is 



THE TIN TKUMPET. 31 

only a postponed auto de fe. And all this hateful irreligion 
for the sake of religion ! How truly may Christianity exclaim 
— " I fear not mine enemies, but save, oh! save me from my 
pretended friends." 

AYAEIOE — The mistake of the old, who begin multiply- 
ing their attachments to the earth, just as they are going to 
run away from it, thereby increasing the bitterness without 
protracting the date of their separation. "What the world 
terms avarice, however, is sometimes no more than a com- 
pulsory economy ; and even a wilful pemiriousness is better 
than a wasteful extravagance. Simonides being reproached 
with parsimony, said he would rather enrich his enemies after 
his death, than borrow of his friends in his lifetime. 

There are more excuses for this " old gentlemanly vice," 
than the world is willing to admit. Its professors have the 
honor of agreeing with Vespasian, that — " Auri bonus est odor 
ex re qualibet" and with Dr. Johnson, who maintained that 
a man is seldom more beneficially employed, either for 
himself or others, than when he is making money. "Wealth, 
too, is power, of whieh the secret sense in ourselves, and the 
open homage it draws from others, are doubly sweet, when 
we feel that all our other powers, and the estimation they 
procured us, are gradually failing. Nor is it • any trifling ad- 
vantage, in extreme old age, still to have a pursuit that gives 
an interest to existence ; still to propose to ourselves an ob- 
ject, of whieh every passing day advances the accomplish- 
ment, and which holds out to us the pleasure of success, with 
hardly a possibility of failure, for it is much more easy to 
make the last 'plum than the first thousand. So far from sup- 
posing an old miser to be inevitably miserable, in the Latin 
sense of the word, it is not improbable that he may be more 
happy than his less penurious brethren. No one but an old 
man who has withstood the temptation of avarice, should be 
allowed to pronounce its unqualified condemnation. 

BACHELOR — one who is so fearful of marrying, lest his 
wife should become his mistress, that he not unfrequently 



32 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

finishes his career by converting his mistress into a wife. 
" A married man," said Dr. Johnson, " has many cares ; but 
a bachelor has no pleasures." Cutting himself off from a 
great blessing, for fear of some trifling annoyance, he has 
rivalled the wiseacre who secured himself against corns by 
amputating his leg. In his selfish anxiety to live unincum- 
bered, he has only subjected himself to a heavier burthen; 
for the passions, who apportion to every individual the load 
that he is to bear through life, generally say to the calculating 
bachelor — " As you are a single man, you shall carry double." 
"We may admire the wit, without acknowledging the truth 
of the repartee utterd by a bachelor, who, when his friend 
reproached him for his celibacy, adding that bachelorship ought 
to be taxed by the Government, replied, " There I agree with 
you, for it is quite a luxury ! " 

BAIT — one animal impaled upon a hook, in order to tor- 
ture a second, for the amusement of a third. "Were the latter 
to change places, for a single day, with either of the two for- 
mer, which might generally be done with very little loss to 
society, it would enable him to form a better notion of the 
pastime he is in the habit of pursuing. — N". B. To make some 
approximation towards strict retributive justice, he should 
gorge the bait, and his tormenter should have all the human- 
ity of an experienced angler ! 

BALLADS — Vocal portraits of the national mind. The 
people that are without them may literally be said not to be 
worth an old song. The old Government of France was well 
defined as an absolute monarchy, moderated by songs ; and 
the acute Fletcher of Saltoun was so sensible of their impor- 
tance, as to express a deliberate opinion, that if a man were 
permitted to make all the ballads, he need not care who made 
the laws of a nation. They who deem this an exaggerated 
notion, will do well to recollect the silly ballad of Lilliburlero, 
the noble author of which publicly boasted, and without much 
extravagance in the vaunt, that he had rhymed King James 
out of his dominions. 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 33 

BANDIT — an unlegalized soldier, who is hanged for doing 
that which would get him a commission and a medal, had he 
taken the king's money, instead of that of travellers. " llle 
crucem sceleris pretium tulit, hie diadema." 

BAR — Independence of the — Like a ghost, a thing 
much talked of and seldom seen. If a barrister possesses 
any professional or moral independence, it cannot be worth 
much, for a few guineas will generally purchase it. It must 
be confessed that he is singularly independent of all those 
scruples which operate upon the consciences of other men. 
Bight and wrong, truth and falsehood, morality and profligacy, 
are all equally indifferent to him. Dealing in law, not justice, 
his brief is his bible, the ten guineas of his retaining fee are 
his decalogue ; his glory, like that of a cook-maid, consists in 
wearing a silk gown, and his heaven is in a judge's wig. 
Head, heart, conscience, body and soul, all are for sale ; the 
forensic bravo stands to be hired by the highest bidder, ready 
to attack those whom he had just defended, or defend those 
whom he had just attacked, according to the orders he may 
receive from his temporary master. Looking to the favor of 
the judge for favor with their clients, and to the government 
for professional promotion, barristers have too often been the 
abject lickspittles of the one, and the supple tools of the 
other. 

M. de la B , a French gentleman, seems to have formed 

a very correct notion of the independence of the bar. Hav- 
ing invited several friends to dine on a maigre day, his ser- 
vant brought him word that there was only a single salmon 
left in the market, which he had not dared to bring away, be- 
cause it had been bespoken by a barrister. — " Here," said his 
master, putting two or three pieces of gold into his hand, 
"go back directly, and buy me the barrister and the salmon 
too." 

BARRISTER — a legal servant of all work. One who 
sometimes makes his gown a cloak for browbeating and put- 
ting down a witness, who, but for this protection, might oc- 
2* 



34 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

casionally knock down the barrister. Show me the conscien- 
tious counsellor, who, refusing to hire out his talents that he 
may screen the guilty, overreach the innocent, defraud the 
orphan, or impoverish the widow, will scrupulously decline a 
brief, unless the cause of his client wear at least a semblance 
of honesty and justice — who will leave knaves and robbers 
to the merited inflictions of the law, while he will cheerfully 
exert his eloquence and skill in redressing the wrongs of the 
injured. Show me such a Phoenix of a barrister, and I will 
admit that he richly deserves — not to have been at the bar ! 

" Does not a barrister's affected warmth and habitual dis- 
simulation impair his honesty ? " asked Boswell of Dr. John- 
son. "Is there not some danger that he may put on the 
same mask in common life, in the intercourse with his 
friends?" — "Why no, sir," replied the Doctor. "A man 
will no more carry'the artifice of the bar into the common 
intercourse of society, than a man who is paid for tumbling 
upon his hands will continue to do so when he should walk 
on his feet." Perhaps not ; but how are we to respect the 
forensic tumbler, who will walk upon his hands, and perform 
the most ignoble antics for a paltry fee ? 

All briefless barristers will please to consider themselves 
excepted from the previous censure, for I should be really 
sorry to speak ill of any man without a cause. 

BATHOS — sinking when you mean to rise. The waxen 
wings of Icarus, which instead of making him master of the 
air, plunged him into the water, were a practical bathos. So 
was the miserable imitation of the Thunderer by Salmoneus, 
which, instead of giving him a place among the Gods, consigned 
him to the regions below. 

Of the written bathos, an amusing instance is afforded in 
the published tour of a lady, who has attained some celebrity 
in literature. Describing a storm to which she was exposed, 
when crossing in the steamboat from Dover to Calais, her 
ladyship says, — " In spite of the most earnest solicitations to 
the contrary, in which the captain eagerly joined, I firmly 
persisted in remaining upon deck, although the tempest had 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 35 

now increased to such a frightful hurricane, that it was not 
without great difficulty I could — hold up my parasol ! " 

As a worthy companion to this little morgeau, we copy the 
following affecting advertisement from a London newspaper : 
— " If this should meet the eye of Emma D * who ab- 
sented herself last Wednesday from her father's house, she is 
implored to return, when she will be received with undimin- 
ished affection by her almost heart-broken parents. If 
nothing can persuade her to listen to their joint appeal — 
should she be determined to bring their gray hairs with sor- 
row to the grave — should she never mean to revisit a home 
where she has passed so many happy years — it is at least ex- 
pected, if she be not totally lost to all sense of propriety, that 
she will, without a moment's further delay, — send back the 
key of the tea-caddy." 

Sydney Smith cites a French traveller who was much giv- 
en to the vice of declaiming upon common-place subjects : — 
'"' He goes on, mingling bucolic details and sentimental effu- 
sions, melting and measuring, crying and calculating, in a 
manner which is very bad, if it is poetry, and worse if it is 
prose. In speaking of the modes of cultivating potatoes, he 
cannot avoid calling the potato a modest vegetable : and when 
he comes to the exportation of horses from the duchy of Hol- 
stein, we learn that 'these animals are dragged from the 
bosom of their peaceable and modest country, to hear, in for- 
eign regions, the sound of the warlike trumpet ; to carry the 
combatant amid the hostile ranks ; to increase the eclat of 
some pompous procession ; or drag, in gilded car, some favor- 
ite of fortune.' " 

How different from this is that truly pathetic passage in 
Mr. Michael Angelo Titmarsh's Journal of Travel from Corn- 
hill to Grand Cairo, when taking leave of the steamer he 
feelingly describes his affection for his fellow- voyagers, from 
the captain and purser, " down even to the greasy old cook, 
who with a touching affection used to bring us locks of his 
hair in the soup." 

BEAUTY— has been not unaptly, though somewhat vul- 



36 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

garly, defined by T. H. as " all my eye," since it addresses 
itself solely to that organ, and is intrinsically of little value. 
From this ephemeral flower are distilled many of the ingredi- 
ents in matrimonial unhappiness. It must be a dangerous 
gift, both for its possessor and its admirer, if there be any 
truth in the assertion of M. Gombaud, that beauty " reprisente 
les Dieux, et lesfait oublier" If its possession, as is too often 
the case, turns the head, while its loss sours the temper ; if 
the long regret of its decay outweighs the fleeting pleasure 
of its bloom, the plain should rather pity than envy the hand- 
some. Beauty of countenance, which, being the light of the 
soul shining through the face, is independent of feature or 
complexion, is the most attractive, as well as the most endur- 
ing charm. Nothing but talent and amiability can bestow it, 
no statue or picture can rival, time itself cannot destroy it. 

"Wants are seldom blessings, and yet the want of a'common 
standard of beauty has incalculably widened the sphere of 
our enjoyment, since all tastes may thus be gratified by 
the infinite variety of minds, and the endless diversities in the 
human form. Father Buffier maintains that the beauty of 
every object consists in that form and color most usual among 
things of that particular sort to which it belongs. He seems 
to have thought that there was no inherent beauty in any 
thing except the juste milieu, the happy mean. " The beauty 
of a nose," says Adam Smith, following out the same, idea in 
his Theory of Moral Sentiments, " is the form at which Nature 
seems to have aimed in all noses, which she seldom hits ex- 
actly, but to which all her deviations still bear a strong re- 
semblance. Many copies of an original may all miss it in 
some respects,, yet they will all resemble it more than they 
resemble one another. So it is with animated forms ; and 
thus beauty, though, in one sense, exceedingly rare, because 
few attain the happy mean, is, at the same time, a common 
quality, because all the deviations have a greater resemblance 
to this standard than to one another." 

Even this, however, is not a certain criterion, for our esti- 
mate of beauty, depending mainly upon association, will be 
influenced by the predominant feeling in the mind of the spec- 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 37 

tator, whether he be contemplating a woman or a landscape. 
Brindley, the civil engineer, considered a straight canal a much 
more picturesque and pleasing object than a meandering river. 
" For what purpose," he was asked, " do you apprehend riv- 
ers to have been intended?" — "To feed navigable canals," 
was the reply. Dr. Johnson maintained that there was no 
beauty without utility, but he was not provided with a rejoin- 
der when the peacock's tail was objected to him. "What so 
beautiful as flowers, and yet we cannot always perceive their 
utility in the economy of nature. There are belles to whom 
the same remark may be applied. 

As the want of exterior generally increases the interior 
beauty, we should do well to judge of women as of the impres- 
sions on medals, and pronounce those the most valuable which 
are the plainest. 

BEEK — Small — An undrinkable drink, which if it were 
set upon a cullender to let the water run out, would leave a 

residuum of nothing. Of whatever else it may be guilty, 

it is generally innocent of malt and hops. Upon the principle 
of lucus a nort lucendo, it may be termed liquid bread, and the 
strength of corn. Small-beer comes into the third category 
of the honest brewer, who divided his infusions into three 
classes — strong table, common table, and lament-table. An 
illiterate vendor of this commodity wrote over his door at 
Harrowgate, " Bear sold here ! " " He spells the word quite 
correctly," said T. H., "if he means to apprise us that the 
article is his own Bruin / " 

" What will be the best method of saving this small-beer 
from depredation ? " said a lady to her butler. — " Placing a 
cask of strong beer at the side of it," was the reply. 

BENEFICENCE — may exist without benevolence. Aris- 
ing from a sense of duty, not from sympathy or compassion, 
it may be a charity of the hand rather than of the heart. 
And this, though less amiable, is, perhaps, more certain than 
the charity of impulse, inasmuch as a principle is better to be 
depended upon than a feeling. There is an apparent benefi- 



38 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

cence which has no connection either with right principle or 
right feeling, as, when we throw alms to a beggar, not to re- 
lieve him of his distress, hut ourselves of his importunity or 
of the pain of beholding him ; and there is a charity which is 
mere selfishness, as when we bestow it for the sole purpose of 
ostentation. We need not be surprised that certain names 
should be so pertinaciously blazoned before the public eye in 
lists of contributors, if we bear in mind that " charity covereth 
a multitude of sins." 

" BENEVOLENCE "—said S. S., in a charity sermon—" is 
a sentiment common to human nature. A never sees B in dis- 
tress without wishing to relieve him." 

BENTLEY— Doctoe.— In the lately published life of this 
literary Thraso, the editor has omitted to insert an anecdote 
which is worth preserving, if it were only for the pun that it 
embalms. Eobert Boyle, afterwards Earl of Cork, having, as 
it was generally thought, defeated Bentley in a controversy 
concerning the authenticity of the letters of Phalaris, the 
Doctor's pupils drew a caricature of their master, whom the 
guards of Phalaris were thrusting into his brazen bull, for the 
purpose of burning him alive, while a label issued from his 
mouth with the following inscription : " Well, well ! I had 
rather be roasted than Boyled" 

BIGOT — Camden relates that when Eollo, Duke of Nor- 
mandy, received Gisla, the daughter of Charles the Foolish, 
in marriage, he would not submit to kiss Charles's foot ; and 
when his friends urged him by all means to comply with that 
ceremony, he made answer in the English tongue — Ne se by 
God — i. e. — Not so by God. Upon which the king and his 
courtiers deriding him, and corruptly repeating his answer, 
called him bigot, which was the origin of the term. Though 
modern bigots resemble their founder in being wedded to the 
offspring of a foolish parent, viz., their own opinion, they are 
unlike him in every other particular ; for they not only insist 
upon kissing the foot of some superior authority, the Pope of 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 39 

their own election, but they quarrel with all the world for not 
following their example. A Bigot is a man of respectable 
opinions, but very ordinary talents ; defending what is right 
without judgment, and believing what is holy without charity. 
Generally obstinate in proportion as he is wrong, he thinks 
he best shows his love of God by hatred of his fellow-crea- 
tures, and his humility by lauding himself and his sect. Vain 
is the endeavor to argue with men of this stamp — 

For steel'd by pride from all assaults, 
They cling the closer to their faults, 
And make self-praise supply an ointment 
For every wound and disappointment, 
As dogs by their own licking cure 
Whatever soreness they endure. 
Minds thus debased by mystic lore, 

Are like the pupils of the eye, 
Which still contract themselves the more, 

The greater light that you supply. 
Others by them are praised or slander'd, 
Exactly as they fit their standard, 
And as an oar, though straight in air, 

Appears in water to be bent, 
So men and measures, foul or fair, 

Viewed through the bigot's element, 
(Such are the optics of their mind,) 
They crooked or straightforward find. 

BIRTH— Low — An incitement to high deeds and the at- 
tainment of lofty station. Many of our greatest men have 
sprung from the humblest origin, as the lark, whose nest is on 
the ground, soars the nearest to heaven. Narrow circum- 
stances are the most powerful stimulant to mental expansion, 
and the early frowns of fortune the best security for her final 
smiles. A nobleman who painted remarkably well for an am- 
ateur, showing one of his pictures to Poussin, the latter ex- 
claimed — " Your lordship only requires a little poverty to 
make you a complete artist." The conversation turning upon 
the antiquity of different Italian houses, in the presence of 
Sextus Y. when Pope, he maintained that his was the most 
illustrious of any, for being half unroofed, the light entered 
on all sides, a circumstance to which he attributed his having 
been enabled to exchange it for the Vatican. 



40 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

BLIND — The — see — nothing. 

BLOOD — The oil of our life's lamp : — the death signature 
of the destroying angel. Of blood, eight parts in ten consist 
of pure water, and yet into what an infinite variety of sub- 
stances is it converted by the inscrutable chemistry of nature ! 
All the secretions, all the solids of our bodies, life itself, are . 
formed from this mysterious fluid. 

T. H., who, whenever he gets beyond his depth in argu- 
ment, seeks to make his escape by a miserable pun, was once 
maintaining that the blood was not originally red, but acquired 
that color in its progress. — " Pray, sir," demanded his oppo- 
nent, " what stage does the blood turn red in ? " — " Why, 
sir," replied T. H., "in the Reading Stage, I presume." 

BLUSHING — a suffusion — least seen in those who have 
the most occasion for it. 

BODY — That portion of our system which receives the chief 
attention of Messrs. Somebody, Anybody, and Everybody, 
while Nobody cares for the soul. — Body and mind are har- 
nessed together to perform in concert the journey of life, a 
duty which they will accomplish pleasantly and safely if the 
coachman, Judgment, do not drive one faster than the other. 
If he attempt this, confusion, exhaustion, and disease are sure 
to ensue. Sensualists are like savages, who cut down the tree 
to pluck all the fruit at once. Writers and close thinkers, on 
the contrary, who do not allow themselves sufficient relax- 
ation, and permit the mind to " o'er-inform its tenement of 
clay," soon entail upon themselves physical or mental disor- 
ders, generally both. We are like lamps ; if we wind up the 
intellectual burner too high, the glass becomes thickened or 
discolored with smoke, or it breaks, and the unregulated 
flame, blown about by every puff of wind, if not extin- 
guished altogether, throws a fitful glare and distorting shad- 
ows over the objects that it was intended to illuminate. The 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 41 

bow that is the oftenest unbent, will the longest retain its 
strength and elasticity. 

" Quandam cithara tacentem 

Suscitat musam, neque semper arcum 
Tendit Apollo." 

BON-MOT — See the present work — passim. " Collectors 
of ana and facetiae, ■," says Champfort, " are like children with 
a large cake before them ; they begin by picking out the plums 
and titbits, and finish by devouring the whole." He might 
also have compared their works to a snow-ball, which, in our 
endeavors to make it larger, takes up the snow first, and then 
the dirt. 

Sheridan, when shown a single volume, entitled " The 
Beauties of Shakspeare," read it for some time with apparent 
satisfaction, and then exclaimed, " This is all very well, but 
where are the other seven volumes ? " 

BOOK — a thing formerly put aside to be read, and now 
read to be put aside. The world is, at present, divided into 
two classes — those who forget to read, and those who read to 
forget. Bookmaking, which used to be a science, is now a 
manufacture, with which, as in every thing else, the market is 
so completely overstocked, that our literary operatives, if they 
wish to avoid starving, must eat up one another. They have, 
for some time, been employed in cutting up each other, as if 
to prepare for the meal. Alas! they may have reason for 
their feast, without finding it a feast of reason. 

BOOKS — Prohibited — Attempting to put the sun of reason 
into a dark lantern, that its mighty blaze may be hidden or 
revealed, according to the will of some purblind despot. 
When W. S. E. published his admirable "Letters from the 
North of Italy," they were found so little palatable to the 
Austrian emperor, that they were prohibited throughout his 
dominions. This honor the author appreciated as he ought, 
only regretting that the interdict would prevent his sending 
copies to some of his Italian friends ; a difficulty, however, 



42 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

which was soon overcome. Cancelling the original title-page, 
he procured a new one to be printed, which ran as follows : — 
" A Treatise upon Sour Krout, with full directions for its pre- 
paration, and remarks upon its medicinal properties." On 
their arrival at the frontiers, the inspector compared the books 
with the Index Expurgatorius, but as he did not find any im- 
perial anathema against sour krout, they were forwarded 
without further scrutiny, and safely reached their respective 
destinations. 

Eabelais said, that all the bad books ought to be bought, 
because they would not be reprinted ; a hint which has not 
been thrown away upon our Bibliomanians, who seem to for- 
get, that, since the invention of printing, no good book has 
ever become scarce. 

BOOKSELLER— There is this difference between the he- 
roes of Paternoster Kow and the Scandinavian warriors in the 
Hall of Yalhalla, — that the former drink their wine out of the 
skulls of their friends, the authors, whereas the latter quaffed 
theirs out of the skulls of their enemies. In ancient times, 
the Yates was considered a prophet as well as bard, but now 
he is barred from his profit, most of which goes to the book- 
seller, who, in return, generously allows the scribbler to come 
in for the whole of the critical abuse. It has been invidiously 
said, that as a bibliopolist lives upon the brains of others, he 
need not possess any himself. This is a mistake. He has the 
wit to coin the wit that is supplied to him, and thus proves 
his intellectual by his golden talents. Many a bookvendor 
rides in his own carriage ; but I do not know a single profes- 
sional bookvvriter who does not trudge a-foot. u Sic vos non 
vdbis" — the proverb's somewhat musty. — If they take our 
honey, they cannot quarrel with us if we now and then give 
them a stiug. 

BORE — a brainless, babbling button-holder. A wretch 
so deficient in tact that he cannot adapt himself to any society, 
nor perceive that all agree in thinking him disagreeable. Syd- 
ney Smith, who had a very keen scent for that kind of game, 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 43 

speaks thus pertinently of the worst specimen of that class, 
the Titled Bore : "a heavy, pompous, meddling peer, occupy- 
ing a large share of the conversation — saying things in ten 
words which required only two, and evidently convinced that 
he is making a great impression ; a large man, with a large 
head, and very learned manner ; knowing enough to torment 
his fellow-creatures, not to instruct them — the ridicule of 
young ladies, and the natural butt and target of wit. It is 
easy to talk of carnivorous animals and beasts of prey ; but 
does such a man who lays waste a whole party of civilized 
beings by prosing, reflect upon the joy he spoils, and the 
misery he creates, in the course of his life ? and that any one 
who listens to him through politeness, would prefer toothache 
or earache to his conversation ? Does he consider the extreme 
uneasiness which ensues, when the company have discovered 
a man to be an extremely absurd person, at the same time 
that it is absolutely impossible to convey, by words or man- 
ner, the most distant suspicion of the discovery ? And then, 
who punishes this bore ? What sessions and what assizes for 
him? "What bill is found against him? "Who indicts him? 
"When the judges have gone their vernal and autumnal rounds 
— the sheep-stealer disappears — the swindler gets ready for 
the Bay — the solid parts of the murderer are preserved in 
anatomical collections. But, after twenty years of crime, the 
bore is discovered in the same house, in the same attitude, 
eating the same soup — unpunished, untried, undissected — no 
scaffold, no skeleton — no mob of gentlemen and ladies to gape 
over his last dying speech and confession." Nevertheless, we 
forgive the man who bores us much more easily than the man 
who lets us see that we are boring him. Towards the former, 
we exercise a magnanimous compassion ; but our wounded 
self-love cannot tolerate the latter. A newly-elected M. 0. 
lately consulted his friend as to the occasion that he should 
select for his maiden speech. A very important subject was 
suggested, when the modest member expressed a fear that his 
mind was hardly of sufficient calibre to embrace it. " Poh ! 
poh ! " said the friend, — " don't be under any apprehensions 



44 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

about your calibre : depend upon it, they will find yon bore 
enough." 

BEEATH — air received into the lungs by many young 
men of fashion for the important purposes of smoking a cigar 
and whistling a tune. 

BKEVITY — the soul of wit, which accounts for the 
tenuity of the present work ! Into how narrow a compass 
has Seneca compressed his account of the total destruction of 
Lyons by fire : " Inter magnam uroem et nullam nox una in- 
terfuit," — between a great city and none, only a single night 
intervened ! 

BEEVITY — the soul of wit. Brevity is in writing what 
charity is to all the other virtues. Eighteousness is worth 
nothing without the one, nor authorship without the other. 
There is an event recorded in the Bible, which men who write 
books should keep constantly in their remembrance. It is 
there set forth, that many centuries ago, the earth was covered 
with a great flood, by which the whole of the human race, 
with the exception of one family, were destroyed. It appears 
also that from thence a great alteration was made in the longevity 
of mankind, who from a range of seven or eight hundred years, 
which they enjoyed before the flood, were confined to their 
present period of seventy or eighty years. This epoch in the 
history of man gave birth to the twofold division of the ante- 
diluvian and the postdiluvian style of writing, the latter of 
which naturally contracted itself into those inferior limits 
which were better accommodated to the abridged duration of 
human life and literary labor. Now, to forget this event, — to 
write without the fear of the deluge before his eyes, and to 
handle a subject as if mankind could lounge over a pamphlet 
for ten years, as before their submersion, — is to be guilty of 
the most grievous error into which a writer can possibly fall. 
An author should call in the aid of some brilliant pen, and 
cause the distressing 'scenes of the deluge to be portrayed in 
the most lively colors for his use. He should gaze at Noah 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 45 

and be brief. The ark should constantly remind him of the 
little time there is left for reading ; and he should learn, as 
they did in the ark, to crowd a great deal of matter into a very 
little compass. 

Upon the memorable dark day, 19th March, 1790, a lady 
wrote to the celebrated Dr. Byles, in Boston, as follows : — 
"Dear Doctor, how do you account for this darkness? " To 
which he replied, as wittily as briefly : — " Dear Madam, I am 
as much in the dark as you are." 

BRIEF — the excuse of counsel for an impertinence that is 
often inexcusable. 

BRUTES — Philosophers have been much puzzled about 
the essential characteristics of brutes, by which they may be 
distinguished from men. Some define a brute to be an animal 
that never laughs, or an animal incapable of laughter ; some 
say they are mute animals. The Peripatetics allowed them a. 
sensitive power, but denied them a rational one. The Platon- 
ists allowed them reason and understanding ; though in a 
degree less pure and less refined than that of men. Lactan- 
tius allows them every thing which men have, except a sense 
of religion ; and some sceptics have gone so far as to say they 
have this also. Descartes maintained that brutes are mere 
inanimate machines, absolutely destitute, not only of all rea- 
son, but of all thought and reflection ; and that all their ac- 
tions are only consequences of the exquisite mechanism of 
their bodies. This system, however, is much older than Des- 
cartes ; it was borrowed by him from Gomez Pereira, a Span- 
ish physician, who employed thirty years in composing a 
treatise on this subject, which he very affectionately called by 
the name of his father and mother — " Antoniana Margarita." 
Poor Gomez was so far from having opponents, that he had 
not even readers : his theory, in the hands of Descartes, excited 
a controversy which reached from one end of Europe to the 
other ; many, who maintained the opposite hypothesis to Des- 
cartes, contended that brutes are endowed with a soul, essen- 
tially inferior to that of man ; and to this soul some have im- 



46 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

* piously allowed immortality. But the most curious of all 
opinions, respecting the understanding of beasts, is that ad- 
vanced by Pere Bougeant, a Jesuit, in a work entitled " Phil- 
osophical Amusement on the Language of Beasts." In this 
book he contends that each animal is inhabited by a separate 
and distinct devil ; that not only this was the case with re- 
spect to cats, which have long been known to be very favorite 
residences of familiar spirits, but that a peculiar devil swam 
with every turbot, grazed with every ox, soared with every 
lark, dived with every duck, and was roasted with every 
chicken. 

Sydney Smith, from whom I quote the above,, says: "I 
should be very sorry to do injustice to the poor brutes, who 
have no professors to revenge their cause by lecturing on our 
faculties ; and at the same time I know there is a very strong 
anthropical party, who view all eulogiums on the brute crea- 
tion with a very considerable degree of suspicion ; and look 
upon every compliment which is paid to the ape as high 
treason to the dignity of man. But I confess I feel myself so 
much at my ease about the superiority of mankind, — I have such 
a marked and decided contempt for the understanding of every 
baboon I have yet seen, — I feel so sure that the blue ape 
without a tail will never rival us in poetry, painting, and 
music, — that I see no reason whatever, why justice may not 
be done to the few fragments of soul, and tatters of under- 
standing, which they may really possess. I have sometimes, 
perhaps, felt a little uneasy at Exeter 'Change, from contrast- 
ing the monkeys with the 'prentice-boys who are teasing 
them ; but a few pages of Locke, or a few lines of Milton, 
have always restored me to tranquillity, and convinced me 
that the superiority of man had nothing to fear." 

BUFFOON — A professional fool, whereas a wag is an 
amateur fool. 

BULL — A bull is exactly the counterpart of a witticism ; 
for as wit discovers real relations that are not apparent, bulls 
admit apparent relations that are not real. The pleasure 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 4? 

arising from bulls proceeds from our surprise at suddenly 
discovering two things to be dissimilar in which a resemblance 
might have been suspected. The same doctrine will apply to 
wit and bulls in action. Practical wit discovers connection 
or relation between actions, in which duller understandings 
discover none ; and practical bulls originate from an apparent 
relation between -two actions which more correct understand- 
ings immediately perceive to have none at all. In the late 
rebellion in Ireland, the rebels, who had conceived a high de- 
gree of indignation against some great banker, passed a reso- 
lution that they would burn his notes ; — which they accord- 
ingly did, with great assiduity ; forgetting, that in burning his 
notes they were destroying his debts, and that for every note 
which went into the flames, a correspondent value went into 
the banker's pocket. A gentleman, in speaking of a noble- 
man's wife, of great rank and fortune, lamented very much 
that she had no children. A medical gentleman who was 
present observed, that to have no children was a great misfor- 
tune, but he thought he had remarked it was hereditary in 
some families. 

Louis XIV. being extremely harassed by the repeated 
solicitations of a veteran officer for promotion, said one day, 
loud enough to be heard, " that gentleman is the most trouble- 
some officer I have in my service." " That is precisely the 
charge," said the old man, "which your Majesty's enemies 
bring against me." 

An English gentleman was writing a letter in a coffee- 
house, and perceiving that an Irishman stationed behind him 
was taking that liberty which Parmenio used with his friend 
Alexander, instead of putting his seal upon the lips of the 
curious impertinent, the English gentleman thought proper to 
reprove the Hibernian, if not with delicacy, at least with 
poetical justice. He concluded writing his letter in these 
words : " I would say more, but a damned tall Irishman is 
reading over my shoulder every word I write." " You lie, 
you scoundrel," said the self-convicted Hibernian. 

A copious and amusing book might be made, by collecting 
the bulls and blunders of all nations, except the Irish, whom 



48 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

we would exclude, upon the principle that determined Martial 
not to describe the nose of Tongilianus, because " nil prater 
nasum Tongilianus habeV Of the French bulls, there are few 
better than the following : A Gascon nobleman had been re- 
proaching his son with ingratitude. "I owe you nothing," 
said the unfilial young man ; "so far from having served me, 
you have always stood in my way ; for if you had never been 
born, I should at this moment be the next heir of my rich 
grandfather." 

Worthy of a place by the side of this Gallic Hibernicism is 
the niaiserie of Captain Baudin, the commander of a French 
expedition of discovery. On opening a box of magnetic 
needles, they were found to be much rusted, which sensibly 
impaired their utility. " "What else can you expect ? " ex- 
claimed the irritated captain ; "all the articles provided by 
government are shabby beyond description. Had they acted 
as I could have wished, they would have given us silver instead 
of steel needles." 

An Irishman may be described as a sort of Minotaur, half 
man and half bull. " Semibovemque virum, semwirumque 
Dovem" as Ovid has it. He might run me into a longer 
essay than Miss Edge worth's, without exhausting the subject ; 
I shall therefore content myself with a single instance of his 
felicity in this figure of speech. In the examination of a Con- 
naught lad, he was asked his age. — " I'm just twenty, your 
honor ; but I would have been twenty-one, only my mother 
miscarried the year before I was born." 

In a debate on the leather-tax, in 1794, in the Irish House 
of Commons, the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Sir John 
Parnell) observed with great emphasis, " that in prosecution of 
the present war, every man ought to give his last guinea to 
protect the remainder.' 1 '' Mr. Vandeclure said, that " however 
that might be, the tax on leather would be severely felt by the 
barefooted peasantry of Ireland." To which Sir Boyle Eoche 
replied, that " this could be very easily remedied, by mating 
the under leather of woody 

Digby sat a long time very attentive, considering a cane- 
bottom chair. At length he said,—" I wonder what fellow 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 49 

took the trouble to find all them holes and put straws around 
them ! " 

BURGLARY — If the burglar who craftily examines a 
house or a shop, to see how he may best break into it and 
steal its contents, be a knave, what name should we bestow 
upon the Old Bailey barrister, who, in the defence of a con- 
fessed thief, sifts and examines the laws to ascertain where he 
may best evade or break through them, for the purpose of 
defrauding justice and of letting loose a felon to renew his 
depredations upon society? Bentham compares the confi- 
dence between a criminal and his advocate to a compact of 
guilt between two confederated malefactors. 

CAGE — An article to the manufacture of which our spin- 
sters would do well to direct their attention, since, according 
to Yoltaire, the reason of so many unhappy marriages is, that 
young ladies employ their time in making nets instead of 
cages. Putting the same thought in another form, we might 
say that our damsels, in fishing for husbands, rely too much 
upon their personal and too little on their mental attractions, 
forgetting that an enticing bait is of little use unless you have 
a hook, line, and landing-net, that may secure the prey. , 

CANDIDATES — for Holy Orders, are sometimes persons 
claiming authority to show their fellow-creatures the way to 
heaven, because they have been unable to make their own 
way upon earth. 

Some of the clamorers against the abuses of the Church 
object that the greatest dunce in families of distinction is 
often selected for the ministry. How unreasonable ! is it not 
better that the ground ' should be ploughed by asses, than re- 
main untilled ? I cannot, by any means, approve the fastid- 
iousness, any more than the bad pun of the Canadian bishop, 
who, finding, after examining one of the candidates for holy 
orders, that he was grossly ignorant, refused to ordain him. 
"My lord!" said the disappointed aspirant, "there is no im- 
putation upon my moral character — I have a due sense of 
3 



50 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

religion, and I am a member of the Propaganda Society." — 
" That I can easily believe," replied the bishop, " for you are 
a proper goose." 

CANDIDATES— for Congress, self-trumpeters. In ad- 
dressing the electors it is amusing to observe how invariably, 
and how very impartially, each candidate, when describing 
the sort of representative whom the worthy and enlightened 
constituents ought to choose, draws a portrait of himself, bla- 
zoning the little nothings that he has achieved, and, some- 
times, like the Pharisee, introducing a fling at his opponent, 
by thanking heaven that he is not like yonder Publican. For 
the benefit of such portrait painters, I will record an apposite 
anecdote of Mirabeau, premising that his face was deeply in- 
dented with the small-pox. Anxious to be put in nomination 
for the National Assembly, he made a long speech to the 
voters, minutely pointing out the precise requisites that a 
proper and efficient member ought to possess, and, of course, 
drawing as accurate a likeness as possible of himself. He was 
answered by Talleyrand, who contented himself with the fol- 
lowing short speech : "It appears to me, gentlemen, that M. 
de Mirabeau has omitted to state the most important of all the 
legislative qualifications, and I will supply his deficiency by 
impressing upon your attention, that a perfectly unobjectiona- 
ble member of the Assembly oijght, above all things, to be 
very much marked with the small-pox." Talleyrand got the 
laugh, which in Prance always carries the election. 

CANDOR — a very pretty thing to talk about. In some 
people may be compared to barley-sugar drops, in which the 
acid preponderates over the sweetness. 

CANT — Originally the name of a Cameronian preacher in 
Scotland, who had attained the faculty of preaching in such a 
tone and dialect, as to be understood by none but his own 
congregation. This worthy, however, has been outcanted by 
his countryman, Irving, whose Babel tongues possess the su- 
perior merit of being unintelligible not only to his flock, but 
even to himself. 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 51 

In the present acceptation of the word, as a synonyme of 
hypocrisy — as a pharisaical pretension to superior religion and 
virtue, substituted by those great professors of both, who are 
generally the least performers of either, cant may be desig- 
nated the characteristic of modern England. Simulation and 
dissimulation are its constituent elements — the substitution of 
the form for the spirit, of appearances for realities, of words 
for things. 

CAKE — The tax paid by the higher classes for their privi- 
leges and possessions. Often amounting to the full value' of 
the property upon which it is levied, care may be termed the 
poor-rate of the rich. Like death, care is a sturdy summoner, 
who will take no denial, and who is no respecter of persons. 
Nor is the importunate dun a whit improved in his manners 
since the time of Horace, for he beards the great and the pow- 
erful in their very palaces, and scares them even in their 
throne-like beds, while the peasant sleeps undisturbed upon 
his straw pallet. Under the perpetual influence of these draw- 
backs and compensations, the inequalities of fortune, if meas- 
ured by the criterion of enjoyment, are rather apparent than 
real ; for it is difficult to be rich without care, and easy to be 
happy without wealth. 

CASTLE — In England every man's cottage is held to be 
his castle, which he is authorized to defend, even against the 
assaults of the king ; but it may be doubted whether the same 
privilege extends to Ireland. — " My client," said an Irish ad- 
vocate, pleading before Lord Norbury, in an action of trespass, 
" is a poor man — he lives in a hovel, and this miserable dwell- 
ing is in a forlorn and dilapidated state ; but still, thank God ! 
the laborer's cottage, however ruinous its plight, is his sanc- 
tuary and his castle. Yes — the winds may enter it, and the 
rains may enter it, but the king cannot enter it." " What ! 
not the reigning king ?" asked the joke-loving judge. 

CATACHRESIS — The abuse of a trope, or an apparent 
contradiction in terms, as when the law pronounces the acci- 



52 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

dental killing of a woman to be manslaughter. The name of 
the Serpentine Kiver, which is a straight canal, involves a 
catachresis, and we often, unconsciously, perpetrate others, in 
our daily discourse ; as when we talk of wooden tomb-stones, 
iron mile-stones, glass ink-horns, brass shoeing-horns, &c. 

Every one recollects the fervent hope expressed by the late 
Lord Castlereagh, that the people of this happy country would 
never turn their backs upon themselves. This was only a 
misplaced trope ; but there sometimes is, among his fellow- 
countrymen, a confusion of ideas that involves an impossibil- 
ity. An Irishman's horse fell with him, throwing his rider to 
some distance, when the animal, in struggling to get up, en- 
tangled its hind leg in the stirrup. " Oh, very well, sir," said 
the dismounted cavalier; "if you're after getting on your 
own back, I see there will be no room for me." 

The following string of Catachreses is versified, with some 
additions and embellishments, from a sermon of an ignorant 
field-preacher : — 

Staying Ms hand, which, like a hammer, 

Had thump'd and bump'd his anvil-book, 
And waving it to still the clamor, 

The tub-man took a loftier look, 
And thus, condensing all his powers, 
Scatter'd his oratoric flowers : 
" What ! will ye still, ye heathen, flee 

From sanctity and grace, 
Until your blind idolatry 

Shall stare ye in the face ? 
Will ye throw off the mask, and show 
Thereby the cloven foot below ? 
Do — but remember, ye must pay 
What's due to ye on settling day ! 
Justice's eye, it stands to sense, 

Can never stomach such transgressions ; 
Nor can the hand of Providence 

Wink at your impious expressions. 
The infidel thinks vengeance dead, 

And in his fancied safety chuckles ; 
But Atheism's hydra head, 

Shall have a rap upon the knuckles." 

CELIBACY — A vow by which the priesthood, in some 
countries, swear to content themselves with the wives of 
other people. 



THE TIN TRUMPET. ■ 53 

CEREMONY — All that is considered necessary by many 
in religion and friendship. 

CENSORIOTTSNESS— Judging of others by ourselves. 
It will invariably be found that the most censurable are the 
most censorious ; while those who have the least need of 
indulgence are the most indulgent. We should pardon the 
mistakes of others as freely as if we ourselves were constantly 
committing the same faults, and yet avoid their errors as care- 
fully as if we never forgave them. There is no precept, how- 
ever, that cannot be evaded. " "We are ordered to forgive our 
enemies, but not our friends," cries a quibbler. ""We may 
forgive our own enemies, but not the heretics, who are the 
enemies of God," said Father Segnerand to Louis XIII. Many 
people imagine that they are not only concealing their own 
misconduct in this world, but making atonement for it in the 
next, by visiting the misdeeds of others with a puritanical 
severity. They may well be implacable ! "I should never 
have preserved my reputation," said Lady B — , " if I had not 
carefully abstained from visiting demireps. I must be strait- 
laced in the persons of others, because I have been so loose in 
my own." — " My dear lady B — !" exclaimed her sympathizing 
friend, " upon this principle you ought to retire into a con- 
vent!" 

CHALLENGE — Calling upon a man who has hurt your 
-feelings to give you satisfaction — by shooting you through the 
body. 

CHANGE — The only thing that is constant; mutability 
being an immutable law of the universe. 

" Men change -with fortune, manners change with climes, 
Tenets with hooks, and principles with times." 

CHARACTER — Individual — A compound from the char- 
acters of others. If it be true that one fool makes many, it is 
not less clear that many fools, or many wise men, make one. 
The noscitur d socio is universally applicable. Like the cha- 



54 THE TIN TRUMPET." 

meleon, our mind takes the color of what surrounds it. 
However small may be the world of our own familiar coterie, 
it conceals from us the world without ; as the minutest object, 
held close to the eye, will shut out the sun. Our mental hue 
depends as completely on the social atmosphere in which we 
move as our complexion upon the climate in which we live. 

Nevertheless, it must be admitted that it is sometimes 
profitable to associate with graceless characters. A reprobate 
fellow once laid his worthy associate a bet of five guineas that 
he could not repeat the creed. It was accepted, and his 
friend repeated the Lord's prayer. " Confound you !" cried 
the former, who imagined that he had been listening to the 
creed, — " I had no idea you had such a memory. There are 
your five guineas !" 

CHARITY — The only thing that we can give away with- 
out losing it. 

" True charity is truest thrift, 
More than repaid for every gift, 
By grateful prayers enroll'd on high, 
And its own heart's sweet eulogy, 
Which, like the perfume-giving rose, 
Possesses still what it bestows." 

Charity covereth a multitude of sins, and the English are 
the most bountiful people upon earth ! The best almsgiving, 
perhaps, is a liberal expenditure ; for that encourages the in- 
dustrious, while indiscriminate charity only fosters idlers and 
impostors. The latter is little better than mere selfishness, 
prompting us to get rid of an uneasy sensation. Sometimes, 
however, we refuse our bounty to a suppliant, because he has 
hurt our feelings ; while the beggar who has pleased us by 
making us laugh at his buffoonery, seldom goes unrewarded. 
Delpini, the clown, applied to George IV. when Prince of 
Wales, for pecuniary assistance, drawing a lamentable picture 
of his destitute state. As he was in the habit of thus impor- 
tuning his Royal Highness, his suit was rejected. At last, as 
he met the Prince coming out of Carlton House, he exclaimed 
— " Ah, votre altesse ! Ah, mon Prince ! if you no assist d@ 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 55 

pauvre Delpini, I must go to your papa's bench !" Tickled 
by the oddity of the phrase, the Prince laughed heartily, and 
immediately complied with his request. 

CHEERFULNESS—" The best Hymn to the Divinity," 
according to Addison, and all rational religionists. When we 
have passed a day of innocent enjoyment ; when " our bosom's 
lord sits lightly on his throne ; " when our gratified and grateful 
feelings, sympathizing with universal nature, make us sensible, 
as John of Salisbury says, that " Qratior it dies, et soles melius 
nitent," — we may be assured that we have been performing, 
however unconsciously, an acceptable act of devotion. Pure 
religion may generally be measured by the cheerfulness of its 
professors, and superstition by the gloom of its victims. Ille 
placet Deo, cui placet Deus — He to whom God is pleasant, is 
pleasant to God. 

CHESS — A wooden or ivory allegory. Sir "William Jones, 
who claims the invention of this game for the Hindoos, traces 
the successive corruptions of the original Sanscrit term, through 
the Persians and Arabs, into scacchi, echess — chess ; which, by 
a whimsical concurrence of circumstances, has given birth to 
the English word check, and even a name to the Exchequer of 
Great Britain. In passing through Europe, the oriental forms 
and names have suffered material change. The ruch, or drome- 
dary, we have corrupted into rook. The bishop was with us 
formerly an archer, while the French denominated it alfin, and 
fol, which were perversions of the original eastern term for 
the elephant. 

The ancient Persian game consisted of the following 
pieces : — 

1. Schach . . . .The King. 

2. Pherz .... The Vizier, or General. 

3. PHI . . . .The Elephant. 

4. Aspen Suar . . . The Horseman. 

5. Ruch .... The Dromedary. 

6. Beydal . . . The Foot-soldiers. 



56 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

In process of time, the Persian names were gradually 
translated into French, or modified by French terminations. 
Schach was translated into Boy — the King ; Pherz, the Yizier, 
became Fercie — Fierce — Fierge — Vierge ; and this last was 
easily converted into a lady — Dame. The Elephant Phil was 
altered into Fol or Fou ; the Horseman became a Cavalier or 
Knight, while the Dromedary, Buck, was converted into a 
Tour, or Tower, probably from being confounded with the 
Elephant, which is usually represented as carrying a castle. 
The foot-soldiers were retained by the name of JPietons, or 
Pions, whence our Pawns. 

In its westward progress, the game of chess adapted itself 
to the habits and institutions of the countries that fostered it. 
The prerogative of the King gradually extended itself, until it 
became unlimited : the agency of the Princes, in lieu of the 
Queen, who does not exist in the original chess-board, bespeak 
forcibly the nature of the oriental customs, which exclude 
females from all influence and power. In Persia, these 
Princes were changed into a single Vizier, and for this Yizier 
the Europeans, with the same gallantry that had prompted the 
French to add a Queen to the pack of cards, substituted a 
Queen on the chess-board. 

We record the following anecdote, as a warning to such of 
our male and married readers as may be in the perilous habit 
of playing chess with a wife. Ferrand, Count of Flanders, 
having constantly defeated the Countess at chess, she conceived 
a hatred against him, which came to such a height, that when 
the Count was taken prisoner at the battle of Bovines, she 
suffered him to remain a long time in prison, though she could 
easily have procured his release. 

CHILD — Spoilt — An unfortunate victim, who proves the 
weakness of his parents' judgment, much more forcibly than 
the strength of their affection. Doomed to feel by daily ex- 
perience, that a blind love is as bad as a clear-sighted hatred, 
the spoilt child, when he embitters the life of those who have 
poisoned his, is not so much committing an act of ingratitude, 
as of retributive justice. Is it not natural that he should love 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 57 

those too little, who by loving him too much have proved 
themselves his worst enemies ?— How can we expect him to be 
a blessing to us, when we have been a curse to him ? It is the 
awarded and just punishment of a weak over-indulgence, that 
the more we fondle a spoilt child, the more completely shall we 
alienate him, as an arrow flies the farther from us the closer 
we draw it to our bosom. 

As a gentle hint to others similarly annoyed, we record the 
rebuke of a visitor, to whom a mother expressed her apprehen- 
sion that he was disturbed by the crying of her spoilt brat. — 
" Not at all, Madam," was the reply ; "lam always delighted 
to hear such children cry." — " Indeed ! why so ? " — " Because 
in all well-regulated families, they are immediately sent out of 
the room." 

CHILDREN"— Jean Paul says beautifully of children : " The 
smallest are nearest God, as the smallest planets are nearest 
the sun." 

CHINA — A country where the roses have no fragrance, 
and the women no petticoats ; where the laborer has no 
Sabbath, and the magistrate no sense of honor ; where the 
roads bear no vehicles, and the ships no keels ; where old men 
fly kites ; where the needle points to the south, and the sign 
of being puzzled is to scratch the antipodes of the head ; where 
the place of honor is on the left hand, and the seat of intellect 
is in the stomach ; where to take off your hat is an insolent 
gesture, and to wear white garments is to put yourself in 
mourning ; which has a literature without an alphabet, and a 
language without a grammar. 

CHIVALRY — The true spirit of chivalry is a generous 
impatience of wrong, an active sympathy with the oppressed, 
an unquenchable fury against the oppressor, a general protec- 
tion of the weak against the guilty and the powerful, with, (in 
the practice,) perad venture, a little tinge of absurdity and a 
small spice of extravagance. Knighthood at present is at low 
ebb : a quiet, harmless kind of thing, shedding no blood but 
3* 



58 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

that of birds, beasts, and fishes, and killing no more than it can 
eat — often not so much. The golden era of knighthood is 
past. Gentlemen no longer ride about the country in tin panta- 
loons and coal-scuttle bonnets, poking one another's ribs 
with bed-posts, and shouting cock-a-doodle-doo at the gates of 
their neighbors' castles. 

CHRISTIANITY — Fashionable— Keeping a pew at some 
genteel church or chapel, to which ladies pay a civil visit when 
the weather is fine, when they have got a new bonnet or 
pelisse to display, and a smart livery servant to follow them 
with a prayer-book. They courtesy very low at the mention 
of the Lord's name, making the homage of the knees a substi- 
tute for that of the heart ; and duly receive the sacrament ? 
which, by a strange perversion of ideas, they look upon as a 
proof of the sincerity of their belief, and an absolution for the 
laxity of their practice. 

Fashionable male Christianity is demonstrated by an occa- 
sional nap in a cushioned and carpeted pew ; in cheerfully 
paying Easter offerings and Church dues ; in maintaining a cer- 
tain decency of appearance ; and more especially in hating those 
who presume to differ in matters of religion. That they possess 
the outward and visible signs of Christianity, both sexes 
exhibit incontestable proofs ; but as to the inward and spiritual 
grace, they leave it to the vulgar and the fanatical. They 
are too polite to travel Zionward in such company, and would 
rather sacrifice heaven altogether, than reach it by any ungenteel 
mode. Provided they may be among the exclusive here, they 
will cheerfully run the risk of being among the excluded 
hereafter. 

CHRISTIAOTTY— Primitive— " There hath not been dis- 
covered in any age," says Lord Bacon, "any philosophy, 
opinion, religion, law, or discipline, which so greatly exalts 
the common, and lessens individual, interest as the Christian 
religion doth." The perpetual denunciations of the rich and 
the great, the repeated averment that the Lord is no respecter 
of persons, the lowly origin of Jesus Christ in his earthly 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 59 

capacity, the selection of his Apostles and chief missionaries 
from among the laboring poor, or from women, a class which 
had previously exercised no influence in society, all tend to 
confirm the assertion of Bacon, and to impart to primitive 
Christianity a character which, in modern times, would almost 
he termed radical ; while it forms a most significant contrast 
to the wealth, splendor, and haughty pride of all those 
spiritual corporations which are called Established Churches. 

He that would form a correct notion of primitive Chris- 
tianity, should study the following character of its Founder, as 
drawn by an eloquent divine : — " Christ in his sympathetic 
character, was fairer than the sons of men, therefore full of 
grace were his lips. His humanity was not, like ours, degene- 
rate, but refined and exalted. God breathed direct into him. 
Sin had not impaired the delicate and sensitive perceptions of 
his nature ; had not chilled the fountain of his feelings, nor 
the warm current of his affections. Prompt to feel the woes 
of others, the sympathetic strings of his heart, constantly 
attuned and tremulously sensitive, vibrated at every sigh of the 
sorrowful spirit, and responded full and deep to every sound of 
human woe. He identified himself with disgrace and sor- 
row, and even with sin. He sympathized with the sufferers 
in his humanity, before he exerted the power of his divinity 
for their relief." 

CHRISTIANS — Many Christians are like chestnuts : very 
pleasant nuts, but enclosed in very prickly burs, which need 
various dealings of Nature, and her grip of frost, before the 
kernel is disclosed. 

CIGAR — A roll of tobacco, with fire at one end of it, 
and a fool at the other. 

CIGAR-SMOKING — Vomiting an offensive exhalation in 
the face of every passenger. As it was said of Virgil that, in 
his Georgics, he threw his dung about him with an air of dig* 
nity, so may we allow Vesuvius and Mount Etna to smoke, 
without conceding that privilege to every puny whifller who 



60 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

may think fit to poison the air with the contents of his mouth. 
Every such culprit ought to he made to swallow his own 
smoke, like the improved steam-engines. It is a solecism in 
good manners that a quasi gentleman should adopt this plough- 
man's habit, even in the open air ; hut to attempt it in any 
sort of mixed society, whether in a public room or on the top 
of a stage-coach, should subject the perpetrator to an uncere- 
monious expulsion. It has, nevertheless, one advantage, — it 
entices fools to be silent, or only to talk smoke, which is at 
least an inaudible annoyance. 

After all, perhaps, there is much to be said on both sides, — 
not of the cigar, for there both sides are alike, — but of 
the question — audi alteram partem: condemn not a cigar 
before you have smoked one. Of this last enormity I was 
never guilty, but, methinks, I might point the wit of some 
fumigator to give a reason for the smoke that is in him ; even 
as the grindstone may sharpen, though it was never known 
to cut : 

" Ego fungar vice cotis, acutum 
Keddere quae ferrum valet, exsors ipsa secandi." 

Yoyons ! there is an inspiration that may vindicate to- 
bacco without its aid ; suppose we, therefore, some puffer 
of Havannah to evaporate the following : — 

EFFUSION— (By a Cigar-Smoker.) 

"Warriors ! who from the cannon's month blow fire, 

Tour fame to raise 

Upon its blaze, 
Alas! ye do but light your funeral pyre! — 

Tempting Fate's stroke, 
Te fall, and all your glory ends in smoke. 
Safe in my chair from wounds and woe, 
My fire and smoke from mine own mouth I blow. 

Te booksellers ! who deal, like me, in puffs, 

The public smokes 

Tou and your hoax, 
And turns your empty vapor to rebuffs. 

Te through the nose 
Pay for each puff; when mine the same way flows, 
It does not run me into debt ; 
And thus, the more I fume, the less I fret. 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 61 

Authors 1 created to be pufFd to death, 
- And fill the mouth 

Of some uncouth 
Bookselling wight, who sucks your brains and breath, 

Tour leaves thus far 
(Without its fire) resemble my cigar ; 
But vapid, uninspired, and flat; 
When, when, O Bards, will ye compose like that ? 

Since life and the anxieties that share 

Our hope and trust, 

Are smoke and dust, 
Give me the smoke and dust that banish care ; 

The rolled leaf bring, 
Which from its ashes, Phoenix-like, can spring — 
The fragrant leaf whose magic balm 
Can, like Nepenthe, all our sufferings charm. 

Oh, what supreme beatitude is this 1 

What soft and sweet 

Sensations greet 
My 60ul, and wrap it in Elysian bliss ! 

I soar above 
Dull earth in those ambrosial clouds, like Jove, 
And from mine Empyrean height 
Look down upon the world with calm delight. 

CIRCLE — The Social — A dull merry-go-round which 
makes us first giddy, and then sick. "What is called the round 
of pleasure, may be compared to a knife-grinder's wheel. "When 
its rotations are duly regulated and adapted to the end proposed, 
it gives point to the wit, while it brightens, sharpens, and 
polishes the general surface of the mind and manners. But if we 
whirl it round with an unintermitting rapidity, it takes off the 
edge of enjoyment, and soon wears out that which it was in- 
tended to refresh and renovate. "We have Christian epicureans, 
who advocate a short life and a merry one, as stanchly as their 
pagan predecessors, and cry out, with Sir Henry Wotton, that 
they had rather live five Mays than fifty Novembers. But, un- 
fortunately, a short life is not always a merry one, nor is a merry 
one necessarily short. "We must live our appointed term, whether 
for good or evil, for we cannot suck out the sweets of life, and 
then lay it down like a squeezed orange. Throwing it away is not 
getting rid of it. A merry youth may turn to a mournful old age ; 



62 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

we may make a boast of leaving our sins when they have de- 
serted us, and of having mastered onr passions when we have 
only worn them out ; but their ghosts may haunt us in the 
shape of gout, dropsy, dyspepsia, and other tormentsj when we 
are only living to do penance for the excesses of our youth. 

An old rake who has survived himself, is the most pitiable 
object in creation. If we discount our allotted portion of 
pleasure, and live upon the capital instead of the interest, at 
the outset of life, we must expect to be bankrupts at its close. 
If we cut down the tree for the sake of its spring blossoms, we 
cannot apply to it for fruits in autumn, or shelter in the winter. 
The hours may seem short that are passed in revelry and dissi- 
pation ; but to suppose that as a matter of course we can thus 
abbreviate our prescribed term, and make death become due, 
just as we are tired of life, is to fall into the ludicrous error of 
the Irishman, who applied to his friend to discount a bill of 
exchange, stating that it had only thirty days to run. When 
he brought it, however, it was found that forty days would 
elapse before it became due, in consequence of which his friend 
objected to cash it. " Ah, now ! " said the Hibernian, " you've 
forgotten that it is Christmas time. Look how short the days 
are ! Sure, if it was summer, the whole forty wouldn't make 
more than thirty." 

CIRCUMSTANCES— If a letter were to be addressed to 
this most influential word, concluding thus — " I am, sir, your 
very obedient humble servant," — the greater part of the world 
might subscribe it, without deviating from the strictest vera- 
city. » 

CIVILIZATION — Man's struggle upwards, in which 
millions are trampled to death, that thousands may mount on 
their bodies. 

There are several meanings included under the term civili- 
zation ; it means, having better cups and saucers than we had 
a century or two centuries ago, better laws, better manners ; 
and it means, also, having nothing to do, — and those who have 
nothing to do, must either be amused, or expire with gaping. 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 63 

For this reason an amusing and entertaining man, who has 
humor, appears to be in high request in a civilized country. 
For this reason, only, the most civilized nations have comic 
papers, and no savage people could appreciate a work like the 
present. 

The difference between civilized and uncivilized man is 
nearly the same as that between a learned pig and a wild boar, 
with this advantage, however, on the side of humanity, that 
one man or set of men may civilize others, but no trained brute 
can train or discipline his fellow-brute. 

CIVILIZATION — Advancement of. — A consolatory pro- 
gression, which ought to make us proud of the present, and to 
inspire us with confidence in the future. If one of our savage 
ancestors, slaughtered, we will suppose, by the incursions of 
some hostile horde, or burnt as a sacrifice in the wicker cages 
of the Druids, were to revive in the present era, he would 
find it difficult to pronounce whether the greatest change had 
occurred in the physical or moral state of his native land. 
"When he expired, Great Britain, covered with dense unhealthy 
forests, or noxious swamps and wildernesses, was thinly in- 
habited by half-naked tribes, forever contending with cold 
and famine, with the beasts of the field, or with fellow-barba- 
rians still more ferocious. At his resuscitation he beholds, 
with utter amazement, how all the past centuries have been 
the diligent slaves of the present, clearing the forests, draining 
morasses, digging canals and wells, levelling hills, filling up 
valleys, making innumerable roads and railways, converting 
the whole surface of the country into a beautiful and product- 
ive garden, or studding it with churches and noble or elegant 
buildings for every imaginable purpose of use and ornament. 

As yet, however, he will have seen nothing. To give him 
some faint conception of what civilization has effected since 
the time of his death, I would read to him a striking passage 
from a modern writer, showing how the comforts and luxuries 
which no king could command a few centuries ago, are now, 
under the influence of peace and commerce, brought within 
the reach of the meanest peasant ; how ships are crossing the 



64 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

seas in all directions to minister to Ms enjoyments; how in 
China they are gathering tea, in the West Indies sugar and 
cotton, in Italy feeding worms, in Saxony shearing sheep ; 
how steam-engines are spinning and weaving, and pumping 
out mines ; how coaches are travelling night and day to ex- 
pedite letters; how vessels and vehicles are conveying fuel 
to every door ; how fleets are sailing, and armies are sustained 
to secure for every subject of the realm protection from for- 
eign or domestic violence. I would endeavor to make my 
barbarian auditor understand that our progress in the intellect- 
ual world has been still greater and more marvellous. I would 
point out to him that as improvement must now advance in 
an incalculably accelerated ratio, the melioration of the last 
thousand years will probably be surpassed in the course of the 
next one or two centuries ; and then, desiring him to throw 
his mind forward, if he could, to the termination of that 
period, I would lead him to form a notion of what has been, 
and will be accomplished by the march of intellect and the 
progress of civilization. 

At some future day an intelligent Feejee or New Holland- 
er, may hold just such a conversation as this with a degen- 
erate Briton or North American. Sydney Smith did not 
speak beyond the mark, when he said : " The time may come, 
when some Botany Bay Tacitus shall record the crimes of 
an emperor lineally descended from a London pickpocket, or 
paint the valor with which he has led his New Hollanders 
into the heart of China. At that period when the Grand 
Lama is sending to supplicate alliance, when the spice islands 
are purchasing peace with nutmegs, when enormous tributes 
of green tea and nankeen are wafted into Port Jackson, and 
landed on the quays of Sydney, who will ever remember that 
the sawing of a few planks, and the knocking together a few 
nails, were such a serious trial of the energies and resources 
of the nation. 

COLLEGE — An institution where young men are apt to 
learn every thing but that which professes to be taught, al- 
though that which professes to be taught falls very short of 



THE TEN" TRUMPET. 65 

what a modern gentleman ought to learn. If onr colleges be 
still the seats of learning, it can only be for the reason assigned 
in the old epigram — 

" No wonder that Oxford and Cambridge profound, 
In learning and science so greatly abound, 
Since some carry thither a little each day, 
And we meet with so few who bring any away." 

COMFOKT— " Ah ! " said a John Bull to a Frenchman, 
" you have no such word as ' comfort ' in your language." — 
"I am glad of it," replied the Gaul; "you Englishmen are 
slaves to your comforts, in order that you may master them." 
There is some truth in this reproach. Perpetually toiling for 
money, with the j>rofessed object of being enabled to live com- 
fortably, we sacrifice every comfort in the acquisition of a 
fortune, in order that when we have obtained it, we may have 
an additional discomfort from our anxiety to preserve or in^ 
crease it. Thus do we "lose by seeking what we seek to 
find." On the other hand, we may find a comfort where we 
never looked for it ; as, for instance, in a great affliction, the 
very magnitude of which renders us insensible to all smaller 
ones. Comfort, in our national acceptation of the word, has 
been stated to consist in those little luxuries and conveniences, 
the want of which makes an Englishman miserable, while 
their possession does not make him happy. 

COMMISERATION"— Felonious— There is a large class of 
idle people in this country, whose palled and jaded feelings 
can only be -roused by some powerful excitement, whence 
they derive so much pleasure, that they immediately yearn 
towards the exciter, however undeserving of their pity. They 
like a murderer, because he relieves them for a moment from 
listlessness and ennui, and assists in committing another mur- 
der, by helping them to kill their greatest enemy — time. The 
spurious, morbid, perverted sympathy which can only be eli- 
cited by criminals and malefactors, generally increasing with 
the enormity of their offences, and which I have stigmatized as 
the " felonious commiseration," may be compared to the dis- 



QQ THE TIN TEUMPET. 

eased taste of certain epicures, who attach no value to a cheese 
while it is sound, hut dote upon it when it "becomes corrupt, 
rotten, and rank with all sorts of offensive abominations. 

COMMONPLACE PEOPLE— are content to walk for 
life in the rut made by their predecessors, long after it has 
become so deep that they cannot see to the right or left. This 
keeps them in ignorance and darkness, but it saves them the 
trouble of thinking or acting for themselves. 

COMPETENCY — A financial horizon, which recedes as 
we advance. This word is by no means of indefinite meaning. 
It always signifies a little more than we possess. We are 
none of us wealthy enough in our own opinion, although we 
may be too much so in the judgment of others. Content is the 
best opulence, because it is the pleasantest, and the surest. 
The richest man is he who does not want that which is want- 
ing to him ; the poorest is the miser, who wants that which 
he has. 

COMPLIMENT— A thing often paid by people who pay 
nothing else : — the counterfeit coin of those who substitute the 
form, fashion, and language of politeness, for its substance and 
its feeling. Throwing compliments, like dice, is a game of 
hazard, at which the incautious player may get nothing but a 
sharp rap on the knuckles. He who sports compliments, 
unless he knows how to take a good aim, may miss his mark, 
and be wounded by the recoil of his own gun. Above all 
things, it is incumbent upon him to reflect, that even a blue- 
stocking will look black at him, if he attempt to flatter her 
mental, at the expense of her personal attractions. At a din- 
ner party in Paris, an ugly and dull German baron, finding 
himself seated between the celebrated Madame de Stael, and 
Madame Recamier, the lelle of the day, whispered to the for- 
mer : " Am I not fortunate, to be thus placed between beauty 
and talent ? " — " Not so very fortunate," replied the offended 
authoress, " since you possess neither one nor the other! " 

"Helas! le pauvre due cPAumontf" exclaimed one of hia 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 67 

female friends; "who would have thought that he would 
have been carried off so suddenly ?— On the very morning of 
his death, he had played as usual with his parroquet and his 
monkey, — he had said, give me my snuff-box, brush this arm 
chair, let me see my new court dress ; — in fact, he possessed 
all his ideas and faculties with as much strength and vigor as 
ever he had done at the age of thirty." What an unintended 
satire in these tender compliments. ISTot more so, however, 
than in the naif remark of a lady, when a censorious and 
conceited neighbor, vaunting of her good figure, boasted that 
herself and her sister had always been remarkable for the 
beauty of their backs. " That is the reason, I suppose, that 
your friends are always so glad to see them." A sarcasm may 
often wear the garb of a compliment, and be taken for one by 
the simple-witted. The Abbe Voisenon once made a com- 
plaint that he was unduly charged with the absurd sayings of 
others. "Monsieur VAbbe" replied D'Alembert, "on neprete 
qifaux riches.'''' 

Mr. Ohoate, wishing to compliment Chief Justice Shaw, 
exclaimed : " When I look upon the venerable Chief Justice 
Shaw, I am like a Hindoo before his idol — I know that he is 
ugly, but I feel that he is great." 

Not altogether unworthy of being recorded is the compli- 
ment attributed to a butcher at Whitby. " This fillet of veal 
seems not quite so white as usual," said a fair lady, laying her 
hand upon it. — "Put on your glove, Ma'am, and you will 
think otherwise," was the complaisant reply. 

Wolcott (Peter Pindar) admired a Miss Dickenson, and has 
handed down her name in this very neat compliment : — 

" In ancient days, great Jove, to show 
To gazing mortals here below 
The loves, the virtues, and the graces, 
Was forced to form three female faces. 
But (so improved his art divine) 
In one fair female now they shine. 
Aloud I hear the reader cry, 
' Heavens (to the poet) ! what a lie ! ' 
Now, as I hate the name of liar, 
Sweet Dickenson, I do desire 
You'll see this unbelieving Jew, 
And prove that all I've said is true 1 " 



68 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

CONCEIT — Taking ourselves at our own valuation, gener- 
ally about fifty per cent, above the fair worth. Minerva threw 
away the flute, when she found that it puffed up her own 
cheeks ; but if we cast away the flute nowadays, it is only 
that we may take a larger instrument of puffing, by becoming 
our own trumpeters. Empty minds are the most prone to soar 
above their proper sphere, like paper kites, which are kept 
aloft by their own lightness; while those that are better 
stored are prone to humility, like heavily laden vessels, of 
which we see the less the more richly and deeply they are 
freighted. The corn bends itself downward when its ears are 
filled, but when the heads of the conceited are filled with self- 
adulation, they only lift them up higher. 

Perhaps it is a benevolent provision of Providence, that 
"we should possess in fancy those good qualities which are 
withheld from us in reality ; for if we did not occasionally 
think well of ourselves, we .should be more apt to think ill 
of others. It must be confessed, that the conceited and the 
vain have a light and pleasant duty to perform, since they 
have but one to please, and in that object they seldom fail. 
Self-love, moreover, is the only love not liable to the pangs of 
jealousy. Pity ! that a quick perception of our own deserts 
generally blinds us to the merits of others ; that we should 
see more than all the world in the former instance, and less in 
the latter ! In one respect, conceited people show a degree of 
discernment, for which they deserve credit, — they soon become 
tired of their own company. Especially fortunate are they in 
another respect ; for while the really wise, witty, and beauti- 
ful, are subject to casualties of defect, age, and sickness, the 
imaginary possessor of those qualities wears a charmed life, 
and fears not the assaults of fate or time, since a nonentity is 
invulnerably Even the really gifted, however, may some- 
times become conceited. North cote, the artist, whose intel- 
lectual powers were equal to his professional talent, and who 
thought it much easier for a roan to be his superior than his 
equal, being once asked by Sir William Knighton what he 
thought of the Prince Kegent, replied, " I am not acquainted 
with him." — " Why, his Koyal Highness says he knows you." 
— " Know me ! — Pooh ! that's all his brag." 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 69 

CONDESCENSION— I have heard that when a goose 
passes under an arch, or through a doorway, of whatever 
altitude, it always stoops ; and this, I suppose, is condescen- 
sion. To say truth, wherever I have seen an ostentation of 
condescension, it has reminded me of geese. 

CONGREGATION— A public assemblage in a spiritual 
theatre, where all the performers are professors, but where 
very few of the professors are performers. 

" Taking them one with another," said the Eev. S — S — , 
" I believe my congregation to be most exemplary observers 
of the religious ordinances ; for the poor keep all the fasts, and 
the rich all the feasts." This fortunate flock might be matched 

with the crew of the A frigate, whose commander, Capt. 

R — , told a friend that he had just left them the happiest set 
of fellows in the world. Knowing the captain's extreme 
severity, his friend expressed some surprise at this statement, 
and demanded an explanation. " Why," said the disciplina- 
rian, " I have just had nineteen of the rascals flogged, and they 
are happy that it is over, while all the rest are happy that 
they have escaped." 

CONSCIENCE — Something to swear by. Conscience 
being regulated by the opinion of the world, has no very de- 
termined standard of morality. Among the ancient Greeks 
and Romans, suicide was a magnanimous virtue, with us it is 
a cowardly crime. The Spartans taught their children to steal ; 
we whip and imprison ours for the same act. No man's con- 
science stings him for killing a single adversary in a duel, or 
scores in war, because these deeds are in accordance with the 
usages of society ; but he may, nevertheless, be arraigned, per- 
chance, for murder, at the bar of the Almighty. Terror of 
conscience, therefore, would seem to be the fear of infamy, 
detection, or punishment in this world, rather than in the 
next. Criminals, who voluntarily surrender themselves to jus- 
tice, and confess their misdeeds, are, doubtless, driven to that 
act of desperation by their conscience ; but it is from a dread 
of Jack Ketch, and the intolerableness of suspense. They 



70 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

would rather be hanged once in reality than every day in im- 
agination. Pass a law that shall legalize their offences, or let 
them be tried and acquitted, from some flaw in the indictment, 
and their minds will be wonderfully tranquillized. How much 
safer a guide and monitor would our conscience become, if we 
adapted it to the immutable laws of God, instead of the fluc- 
tuating opinions of man, and were penetrated with the great 
truth that, whatever may be our present feelings, there is an 
inevitable ultimate connection between happiness and virtue, 
misery and vice. 

There is a Greek epigram to the effect that it would be a 
good thing if the headache came before the drinking bowl, in- 
stead of after it. Suppose it were so ordered, that the twinges 
of conscience should be palpable and physical instead of men- 
tal, we should find the morals of mankind wonderfully im- 
proved ; I mean, if retribution were but simultaneous with 
transgression ; if, for example, that thing we call conscience 
were attached to one of the vertebras, and, at the same time 
that it warned us, began to tug away at some exquisitely sen- 
sitive nerve. What alderman would gloat on venison, if, 
after having taken as much as was good for him, Conscience, 
the moment he set up for a superfluous slice, admonished him 
of his folly by a sudden fit of the colic, instead of a sleepy, dozy 
intimation, that ten or twenty years hence, if he lived so 
long, he would repent it; or if a liar, the moment his tongue 
began to wag, found his face blushing with St. Anthony's fire, 
instead of the faint tints of shame ; or if a thief detected the 
incipient feeling of covetousness by a desperate contempora- 
neous twinge of gout in his great toe ; or if the hypocrite (as 
according to Swedenborg's notion of " spiritual correspond- 
ences " he is, or ought to be) were told of his fault by a 
swinging paroxysm of toothache ! 

CONSERVATIVES— Those "solid gentlemen" who go 
about treading upon the coat-tails of Progress, and crying, 
whoa! whoa! 

CONSISTENCY—^ Inconsistency. 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 71 

CONSOLATION"— for unsuccessful authors. "Many works," 
says Chamfort, " succeed, because the mediocrity of the author's 
ideas exactly corresponds with the mediocrity of ideas on the 
part of the public." "Writers who fail in hitting the present 
taste, are apt to appeal to posterity, which, even if it should 
ratify their fond anticipations, (a rare occurrence,) will only 
show that they have still failed, because they have gained an 
object which they did not seek, and missed that which they 
sought. Let him profess what he will, every man writes to be 
read by his contemporaries ; otherwise why does he publish ? 
It would be a poor compliment to a sportsman to say — " You 
have missed all the birds at which you took aim, but you fire 
so well that your shot will be sure to hit something before 
they fall to the ground." He who professes to do without the 
living, and yet wants the suffrages of the unborn, stands little 
chance of obtaining his election, and is sure that he cannot 
enjoy it, even if he succeed. Few will possess such claims to 
celebrity as Kepler, the German astronomer ; and yet there 
was a sense of mortification, as well as an almost profane 
arrogance, when, on the failure of one of his works to excite 
attention, he exclaimed, " My book may well wait a hundred 
years for a reader, since God himself has been content to wait 
six thousand years for an observer like myself." 

CONTENT— A mental Will-o'-the-wisp, which all are 
seeking, but which few attain. And yet every one might 
succeed, if he would think more of what he has, and less of 
what he wants. Daily experience may convince us that those 
who possess what we covet, are not a jot more happy than 
ourselves : why then should we labor and toil in chasing dis- 
appointment ? How few feel gratitude for what they have, 
compared to those who pine for what they have not ! Aut 
Ccesar aut nullus is the prevalent motto : not to have every 
thing, is to have nothing. Like the famous Duke of Bucking- 
ham, some are more impatient of successes, than others are of 
reverses ; by basking in the sunshine of fortune, they become 
sour, and turn to vinegar. 



72 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

" Let this plain truth those ingrates strike, 

Who still, though bless'd, new blessings crave, 
That we may all have what we like, 
Simply by liking what we have." 

Or, if this fail, let us call arithmetic to our aid, and learn 
content from comparing ourselves and our lot with the many 
who want what we possess, rather than with the few who pos- 
sess what we want. 

CONTROVERSY— What a blessing to the world if it had 
exemplified the dictum of Sir William Temple, that all such 
controversies as can never end, had much better never begin ! 
At the present moment, when the necessity of a Church refor- 
mation is so generally discussed, it may not be uninteresting 
to reprint the lines on the famous controversy between John 
Rainolds and one of his brothers, wherein each converted the 
other. 

" In points of faith some undetermined jars, 
Betwixt two brothers, kindled civil wars : 
One for the Church's reformation stood, 
The other held no reformation good. 
The points proposed, they traversed the field 
With equal strength; so equally they yield. 
As each desired, his brother each subdues ; 
Tet such their faith, that each his faith does lose. 
Both joyed in being conquered, strange to say, 
And yet both moura'd, because both won the day." 

As to religious controversy, we will set an example worthy 
of all imitation, by saying nothing about it, further than to refer 
the curious in such matters to the tomb of Sir Henry Wotton, 
in the chapel at Eton, whereon is the following inscription : 
" Hie jacet hujus sententiae primus auctor : — Disputandi pru- 
ritus Ecclesioz scabies.' 1 ' 1 " Here lies the first author of this 
sentence : — The itch of disputation is the scab of the Church." 

CONVERSATION— Rational {See Library)— Solitude— 
any thing but company. Despotic but civilized countries, such 
as France under the old monarchy, where the men, having 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 73 

little or iio share in the government, and being unembittered 
by party politics, throw their whole minds into social inter- 
course, are the best adapted for conversational excellence. In 
England we have too much business and too much political 
acrimony to allow us either time or aptitude for the enjoyment 
of society in all its nonchalance, sprightliness, and vivacity ; 
while even the narrow bounds left to us are still further re- 
stricted by our pride, reserve, and exclusiveness. How incal- 
culably would the tone of conversation be improved, if it 
offered no exceptions to the example of Bishop Beveridge : 
"I resolve never to speak of a man's virtues to his face, nor of 
his faults behind his back." A golden rule ! the observation 
of which would at once banish flattery and defamation from 
the earth. Conversation stock being a joint and common 
property, every one should take a share in it ; and yet there 
may be societies in which silence will be our best contribution. 
"When Isocrates, dining with the King of Cyprus, was asked why 
he did not mix in the discourse of the company, he replied, 
" What is seasonable I do not know, and what I know is not 
seasonable." 

A brilliant talker is not always liked by those whom he 
has most amused, for we are seldom pleased with those who 
have in any way made us feel our inferiority. " The happiest 
conversation," says Dr. Johnson, " is that of which nothing is 
distinctly remembered, but a general effect of pleasing impres- 
sion." — " Ko one," says Dean Locker, " will ever shine in con- 
versation, who thinks of saying fine things : to please, one 
must say many things indifferent, and many very bad." This 
last rule is rarely violated in society ! 

COQUETTE — A female general who builds her fame on 
her advances. A coquette may be compared to tinder, which 
lays itself out to catch sparks, but does not always succeed in 
lighting up a match. Men are perverse creatures ; they fly 
that which pursues them, and pursue that which flies them. 
Forwardness, therefore, on the part of a female, makes them 
draw back, and backwardness draws them forward. There 
will always be this difference between a coquette and a woman 
4 



74 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

of sense and modesty, that while one courts every man, every 
man will court the other. "When the coquette settles into an 
old maid, it is not unusual to see her as staid and formal as she 
was previously versatile : — 

" Thus weathercocks, which for a while 
Have turn'd about with every blast, 
Grown old, and destitute of oil, 
Eust to a point, and fix at last." 

COUNTERACTION— a balancing provision of nature, for 
the prevention of excess, whether in morals or mechanics. 
But for this salutary restraint, even our virtues would he 
pushed to a vicious extreme. How many men do we encounter 
in society whose praises of their friends, when speaking to 
their faces, would appear fulsome flattery, were it not quali- 
fied by their disparagement of the same friends behind 
their backs ! Others there are whose warm offers of assist- 
ance to such as do not need their aid, would appear generous 
even to a fault, did we not invariably find that they are 
equally cold, shy, and cautious where there is any probability 
of their professions being accepted. People may run into 
excess with their vices, but their virtues, thanks to this whole- 
some principle of counteraction, are seldom urged beyond the 
boundaries of prudence. 

COUNTRY-GIRL— Here is one of the olden time : 

" Although I am a country lass, 
A lofty mind I bear-a ; 
I think myself as good as those 
That gay apparel wear-a. 

" What though I keep my father's sheep, 
A thing that must be done-a; 
A garland of the fairest flowers 
Shall shield me from the sun-a. 

" And when I see them feeding here, 
Where grass and flowers spring-a, 
Close by a crystal fountain's side, 
I'll sit me down and sing-a. 

" I care not for the fan or mask, 
When Titan's heat reflecteth ; 
A homely hat is all I ask, 
Which well my face protecteth. 



THE TIN TEUMPET. 75 

" Tet am I in my country guise 
Esteemed a lass as pretty 
As those that every day devise 
New shapes in court or city." 

COURAGE— The fear of being thought a coward. The 
reverence that withholds us from violating the laws of God or 
man is not infrequently branded with the name of cowardice. 
The Spartans had a saying, that he who stood most in fear of 
the law, generally showed the least fear of an enemy. We 
may infer the truth of this dictum from the reverse of the 
proposition, for daily experience shows us that they who are 
the most daring in a bad cause, are often the most pusillani- 
mous in a good one. Bravery is a cheap and vulgar quality, 
of which the highest instances are frequently found in the 
lowest savages, and which is often still more conspicuous 
in the brute creation than in the most intrepid of the human 
race. Equally signal were the courage and the candor of 
the man of Amiens, who being driven to the gates of his 
own city, cried out, " Come on, if you dare, cuckolds of Abbe- 
ville ; we are here four to one of you." 

COURT — "La Cour," says La Bruyere, " ne rend pas 
content ; mats elle empeche qu'on ne le soit ailleurs.''' 1 If there 
be truth in this position, a luckless courtier must somewhat 
resemble the showman's amphibious animal — " who cannot 
live on the land, and dies in the water." 

COUSIN" — A periodical bore from the country, who, because 
you happen to have some of his blood, thinks he may inflict the 
whole of his body upon you during his stay in town. "We 
do not mention his mind, because it is generally a nonentity. . 

CREATION" — Lord of the — An ephemeral insect, the slave, 
too often, of his own passions. If this magisterial worm con- 
templates a map of the world, he will find that nearly three- 
fifths of it are covered by the sea and polar ice, and appear 
consequently to have been made for the occupation and accom- 
modation of fishes, rather than of human beings; while no 



76 THE TIN TBUMPET 

small portion of the earth is in the possession of wild beasts 
and savages. . If he considers his body, he will find it inferior, in 
some of its most important functions, to many of the animals ; 
but if he look into his mind, he will instantly discover sufficient 
vindication for the proud title he has assumed. By the study 
of geology, he can throw back his existence into the remote 
eras, long before the creation of man. History makes him 
contemporary with all the celebrated nations of antiquity; 
speculation carries his life forward into an illimitable futurity ; 
astronomy enables him to develop the laws by which the 
universe is governed, and to penetrate, as it were, into the 
secrets of the Deity. Thus doth he conquer both time and 
space. The beautiful and majestic earth is his footstool, he 
walks between two eternities. God is everywhere round about 
him, a beatific immortality is before him. Truly this august 
creature may justly term himself the Lord of the creation. 

CREDULITY— An instinct of youth. " The simple be- 
lieveth every word, but the prudent man looketh well to his 
going." Prov. xiv. 15. Credulity diminishes as we gather 
wisdom by experience, and yet, even among the old and sus- 
picious, it is probable that many falsehoods are believed, for 
a single truth that is disbelieved. The young having a constant 
tendency to welcome pleasant and repel disagreeable impres- 
sions, reject as long as they can the painful feeling of suspicion. 
Belief, like a young puppy, is born blind ; and must swallow 
whatever food is given to it ; when it can see, it caters for 
itself. Or it may be better compared to the block of marble, 
and Truth to the statue within it, at which we can only arrive 
by perpetually cutting away the fragments that enclose and 
conceal it. As a good workman is known by the quantity of his 
chips, so may a penetrative mind by the rubbish and heaps of 
discarded credulity with which it is surrounded. Taking the 
whole world at the present moment, can it be said to believe a 
thousandth part of what it believed a thousand, years ago ? 

CRITIC — Malignant — A braggadocio of minuteness — a 
swaggering chronologer ; a man bristling up with small facts — 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 77 

prurient with dates — wantoning in obsolete evidence — loftily 
dull, and haughty in his drudgery. No sooner do they see the 
announcement of your work than they prepare for its destruc- 
tion ; with an intuitive penetration they decide upon its guilt, 
while yet in the womb ; and before it is born they have 
settled exactly the method in which it shall be damned. 

CRITICS— Nambt Pamby — Individuals who follow puffing 
as a business, trusting thereby to get an occasional blow out. 

CRITICISM — very often consists of measuring the learning 
and the wisdom of others, either by our own ignorance, or by our 
little technical and pedantic partialities and prejudices. Every 
one has heard of the mathematician who objected to Shak- 
speare, that his works proved nothing. Equally luminous was 
the remark of the lawyer, who, happening to catch the words— 
"a deed without a name," uttered by the witches in Macbeth, 
repeated — " A deed without a name ! — why, 'tis void." In the 
same enlarged spirit is much of our criticism written ; but even 
this is better than the feeling of rancor and bitterness by 
which it is too often perverted from its legitimate ends, and 
rendered subservient, by the most disingenuous acts, to the 
gratification of personal pique or party malevolence. As the 
devil can quote scripture for his purpose, so can the practised 
critic, by severing passages from their context, and placing 
them in a ridiculous or distorting light, make the most praise- 
worthy work appear to condemn itself. A book thus unfairly 
treated, may be compared to the laurel, of which there is honor 
in the leaves, but poison in the extract. 

Of much of our contemporary criticism, which consists 
rather in reviewing writers than writings, we may find a fair 
type in the following passage from a letter of the celebrated 
Waller: "The old blind schoolmaster, John Milton, hath 
published a tedious poem on the fall of man ; if its length be 
not considered as merit, it hath no other." 

Pepys, in his Memoirs, thus speaks of Hudibras : " "When I 
came to read it, it is so silly an abuse of the Presbyter knight 
going to the wars, that I am ashamed of it ; and by and by> 



78 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

meeting at Mr. Townsend's at dinner, I sold it to Mr. Battersby 
for 18^." ! There are living critics who seem to have caught 
the mantle of these sapient judges. 

CUNNING — The simplicity by which knaves generally 
outwit themselves. As the ignorant and unsuspicious are often 
protected by their singleness of purpose, so are the crafty and 
designing not unfrequently foiled by their duplicity. It is not 
every rogue that, like a bowl, can gain his object the better by 
deviating from the straight line ; although there is one straight 
line to which the rogue's deviations are very apt to conduct 
him. 

CURIOSITY — Looking over other people's affairs, and 
overlooking our own. If a spy may be executed by the laws 
of war, surely a Paul Pry may be kicked or horsewhipped by 
the laws of society. There is no peace with such a man, unless 
you declare war against him. Xenocrates, reprehending curi- 
osity, said, " It was as rude to intrude into another man's house 
with your eyes, as with your feet." 

Among the many illustrations of female curiosity since the 
time of Bluebeard, there are few more amusing than the French 
anecdote of two Catholic young ladies, who tossed up which 
should confess to fornication, in order to learn the meaning of 
the word ; while another bought a printed catalogue of crimes, 
and confessed to so many, that the confessor's hair stood on 
end, until she added Simony to the list. 

CUSTOM — A reason for irrational things, and an excuse 
for inexcusable ones. While we exercise our own judgment 
in all matters of importance, we should do well, in trifles, to 
conform, without inquiry, to existing modes. " A froward 
retention of custom," says Lord Bacon, "is as turbulent a thing 
as an innovation ; " a dictum which we recommend to the 
special consideration of our Conservatives. Most shrewd and 
discreet was the advice of the old lady, who, on her first settle- 
ment at Constantinople, advised her children to conform strictly 
to the manners and customs of the inhabitants, adding — " When 



THE TIN TRUMPJET. 79 

people are in Turkey, they should live as turkeys live." Per- 
haps the power of custom was never more strongly exemplified 
than in the case of Ariosto's hero, who was so habituated to 
fighting, that he went on combating, even after he was dead. 

II pover uomo che non se n'era accorto, 
Andava combattendo — ed era morto." 

DAY AND MAKTIN— Falsifiers of prophecy. Thirty 
years ago, our wiseacres predicted, that when all could read 
and write, we should find none to black our shoes. The day 
of evil has arrived : everybody can read and write ; our shoes 
are not only better blacked than ever, but they are polished 
by comparatively polished people ; our blacking-makers acquire 
fortunes, and build palaces, thus giving encouragement to 
other arts than the black one ; and it is even reported that a 
London firm keeps a regular bard upon the establishment, to 
write poetical puffs. 

Nevertheless, we have heard of a saucy knight of the 

shoulder-knot, who, on applying to the irascible Colonel B , 

while he was at his desk, for the vacant situation of valet, 
asked permission to state beforehand that he never touched a 
boot, and inquired who was to do the black work ? " That I 
do myself," cried the Colonel, throwing the inkstand in his 
face ; " and as you never touch a boot, I must make my boot 
touch you," — with which words he kicked him down stairs. 

DEATH— 

Leaves have their time to fall, 
And flowers to wither at the North wind's breath ; 

And stars to set — but all, 
Thou hast all seasons for thine own, O Death 1 

The sleeping partner of life — a change of existence. 
This great and insolvable mystery, which we are ever 
flying from and running towards, is by no means the cpofiepov 
<po(3ep<l)TaTov that our fancy sometimes represents it. To live 
is, in fact, to die, and to die is to live ; for the body is the 
grave of the soul, and death the gate of life. If to expire be 
an evil, it is only a negative one, which might well be endured, 



80 THE TIN TRUMPET, 

since it terminates those that are positive. If it be a rod, it is 
like that of Aaron, which blossoms and bears the fruit of peace. 
"Why should a long be less pleasant than a short sleep ? Post- 
natal cannot differ from ante-natal unconsciousness — we were 
dead before we lived ; ceasing to exist is only returning to our 
former state, speaking always with reference to this world. 

It is what we are flying from, rather than to, that often 
makes us unwilling to sustain so " violent a wrench from all 
we love ;" an argument which one of the fathers adduces as 
an excuse for the bitterness of the world : ;i Amarus est mun- 
dus, et diligitur. Puta, si dulcis esset, qualiter amareturP 
A French monarch being told, in his last moments, that he would 
soon be a saint in heaven, exclaimed sorrowfully, " I should 
have been quite content to remain King of France and Navarre." 

" Ah, David, David ! " said Johnson to Garrick, who had 
been showing him his house and grounds at Hampton,—" these 
are the things that make a death-bed terrible ! '* Had he been 
reading in the Alceste — 

" Ce sont les douceurs de la vie, 
Qui font les horreurs du trepas ; " — 

or Horace's 

"Linquenda tellus, et domus, et placens 
Uxor, neque harum quas colis arborum, 
Te, praeter invisos cupressos, 
Ulla brevem domiuum sequetiur ? " 

Montaigne makes Nature address man in the following 
words: — " Sortez de ce monde comme vous y etes entre; le 
meme passage que vous avez fait de la mort d la vie, sans pas- 
sion et sans frayeur, refaites-la de la vie d la mort. Votre 
mort est une des pieces de Vordre de Vunivers ; une piece de la vie 

du monde. Si vous rCaviez la mort, vous me maudoriez sans 

cesse de vous en avoir priveP 

" O Death, I bless thee ! " exclaims Le Mercier, in a tone 
of bitter eloquence. " Thou shakest tyrants ; thou reducest to 
dust those whom the world had flattered, and who made man- 
kind their footstool. They fall, and we breathe more freely. 
Hope of the unfortunate ! terror of the wicked ! stretch out 
thine arm, and strike the persecutors of the earth. And ye 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 81 

voracious worms ! my friends and my avengers ! hasten in 
crowds to the feast of their crime-fattened carcasses ! " 

He that would die sooner or later than he ought, is equally 
a coward. Caesar, when he heard of any sudden death, used to 
wish — " sibi et suis euthanasiam similem" and he was right ; 
for the aspect, the threats, and the hark, of death, are worse 
than his hite. 

The author of the following stanzas seems to have been of 
Caesar's opinion : — 

" Oh I come not, thou skeleton king, in the garb 

Of a lingering sickness to summon thy prize, 
To hover above me with menacing barb, 

And dangle its ominous glare in mine eyes — 
For see ! I have open'd my breast, that thy dart 
May be steadily aim'd at a resolute heart. 

" Be the grass of the meadow my pillow of death, 

And the friends that surround it — the sea and the sky ; 
May the angel-wing' d breezes receive my last breath, 

To be borne to its Heavenly Giver on high ! — 
Be the spot where I fall unprofaned by a tear, 
Save the dews of the night that descend on my bier." 

Death is the only subject upon which everybody speaks 
and writes, without a possibility of having experienced what 
he undertakes to discuss. Contempt of it is seldom real ; it is 
but the love of glory : many, besides Mirabeau, have drama- 
tized their own exits. Most consolatory is the reflection, that 
if this great consummation puts an end to the enjoyments of 
some, it terminates the sufferings of all. Death is a silent, 
peaceful genius, who rocks our second childhood to sleep in 
the cradle of the coffin. 

It is the proud prerogative of noble natures, that they 
retain their influence after death. The lamps which guided us 
on earth become stars to light us from above, and the benefi- 
cent may still claim our aspirations as the blessed ; — a species 
of apotheosis equally honorable to the living and the dead. 

DEBT — National — Mortgaging the property of our pos- 
terity, that we may be better enabled to destroy our contempo- 
raries. It may be questionable, whether any community has 



82 THE TIN TKUMPET. 

a moral right to discount the future for the purpose of tor- 
menting or corrupting the present ; to exhaust the resources 
of many ages, that it may render the pugnacity and ambition of 
its own more extensively mischievous. 

Speaking of the difference between laying out money in 
land, or investing it in the funds, it was said by Soame Jenyns, 
that one was principal without interest, and the other interest 
without principal. 

DECEPTION — A principal ingredient in happiness — Did 
we possess the spear of Ithuriel, or could we realize the sug- 
gestion of Momus, we should gain a fearful loss. An enemy to 
education, when told that the schoolmaster was abroad, replied, 
" I am very glad to hear it ; I hope he will remain there ! " 
A friend to his species will utter a similar aspiration respecting 
Truth, if he believes the popular saying, that she lies at the bot- 
tom of a well. Instead of regretting that we are sometimes 
deceived, we should rather lament that we are ever undeceived. 
But, alas ! as Seneca says — " Nemo omnes, neminem omnes 
fefellerunt." — None deceives all, and none have all deceived. 

DEDICATION — Inscribing to an individual that which, if 
it be worth encouragement, will find its best patron in the 
public. Kopp, the German, prefixed the following short, but 
pithy dedication to his Palasographia Critica : — " Posteris hoc 
opus, ab cequalium meorum studiis forte alienum, do, dico, 
a.tque dedico." Upon these occasions, one cannot help shar- 
ing the apprehension expressed by Voltaire, that the work 
may never reach the party to whom it is addressed ! 

DESCKIPTION — A living critic has laid it down as a rule, 
that no author can succeed in describing what he has not seen, 
forgetting that Dante was never in hell, nor Milton in para- 
dise ; and that it is the highest praise of Shakspeare to have 
" exhausted worlds, and then imagined new." Inventive 
writers evince their talent by portraying the invisible and 
non-existent, snatching a grace, not only beyond the reach of 
art, but beyond the reach of nature. Little right had the 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 83 

critic in question to expect imagination in others, for it is 
manifest that he possessed none himself. 

DELPHINE — A novel of the hlood-and-thunder school of 
fiction now in vogue, written by Madame de Stael at the 
beginning of the present century. It lives now only through 
the smashing criticism by which Sydney Smith handed it down 
to an immortality of contempt. He says of it : 

" This dismal trash, which has nearly dislocated the jaws of every critic 
among us with gaping, has so alarmed Bonaparte, that he has seized the whole 
impression, sent Madame de Stael out of Paris, and, for aught we know, sleeps 
in a nightcap of steel and dagger-proof blankets. To us it appears rather an 
attack upon the Ten Commandments, than the government of Bonaparte, and 
calculated not so much to enforce the rights of the Bourbons, as the benefits of 
adultery, murder, and a great number of other vices, which have been some- 
how or other strangely neglected in this country, and too much so (according 
to the apparent opinion of Madame de Stael) even in France." 

********** 

To conclude : our general opinion of this book is, that it 
is calculated to shed a mild lustre over adultery ; by gentle and 
convenient gradation, to destroy the modesty and the caution 
of women, to facilitate the acquisition of easy vices, and encum- 
ber the difficulty of virtue. What a wretched qualification of 
this censure to add, that the badness of the principles is alone 
corrected by the badness of the style, and that this celebrated 
lady would have been very guilty, if she had not been very 
dull! 

DESPONDENCY — Ingratitude to heaven, as cheerfulness 
is the best and most acceptable piety. H — , who is bilious, 
and hypochondriacal, may be termed a constitutional grumbler. 
" If my future life," he one day exclaimed, " be only an unex- 
ecuted copy, an unheard echo, an invisible reflection of the 
past, I wish it not to be prolonged. Eunning after happiness, 
is only chasing the horizon, or seeking the philosopher's stone, 
and I am already 

" ' Tired of toiling for the chymic gold, 
That fools us young, and beggars us when old.' " 

D — does not possess the talents of H — , but his bile is 
never deranged ; he has a fortunate organization ; he is a happier, 



84 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

and, so far, a wiser man. Like the bee, which extracts honey 
even from hitter flowers, he can derive cheerfulness from the 
most unpromising elements. Are his companions gloomy, 
disagreeable, silent, — he calls forth his own stores of pleasant- 
ness, and if he do not succeed in enlivening others, which is 
but rarely the case, — for good-humor and good spirits are 
often catching, — he finds cause for gratitude that he himself 
possesses a constant aptitude for the enjoyment of existence, 
while so many are enacting the part of Terence's Heautonti- 
morumenos. Is the scenery picturesque, it exalts his admira- 
tion into rapture ; is it flat and commonplace, it still possesses 
an interest for one who feels that every spot of ground, how- 
ever unattractive, conduces to some benevolent purpose of 
utility or enjoyment. Does the sun shine, its jocund beams 
heighten his natural exhilaration, by lifting up his thoughts to 
the great Source of all light, solar as well as intellectual. Is 
it a rainy day, he sees the outstretched hand of the same 
beneficent Deity, guiding the clouds over the earth, that they 
may dispense fertility and gladness to the creatures whom He 
has called into existence, and around whom He is forever 
scattering blessings. I know not how H — may feel upon the 
occasion, but, for my own part, I would gladly give up what- 
ever I may possess of talent and learning — (deem me not over- 
weening, gentle reader ! for, perchance, I may reckon them as 
Indians do rupees — by the lack) — I would give them all up, I 
repeat, to possess the happy disposition of D — . 

DESPOTISM — Allowing a whole people no other means of 
escape from oppression than by the assassination of their 
oppressor. If tyranny be an unjustifiable liberticide, may not 
tyrannicide be termed justifiable homicide? "We moot the 
point, without presuming to decide it. Despotism, nevertheless, 
has its advantages in a barbarous and ignorant country, where 
its evils are little felt. Peter the Great, of Russia, could hardly 
have accomplished so much in civilizing his subjects, if he had 
not been an absolute monarch. Even among a comparatively 
enlightened people, such is the force of habit, that a long- 
established despotism may continue unabated, without being 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 85 

resented by its victims. For two centuries, at least, the French 
presented the anomaly of a polished, intellectual, enslaved 
people. Nay, they could record their degradation, and seem 
to glory in it. The terror of Eur#pe, named, par excellence, the 
Grand Monarque, was the puppet of an old woman, the widow 
of Scarron, the buffoon, whom he had clandestinely married. 
" The State is myself," said Louis XIV. ; an ebullition of des- 
potism imitated in our own times by Napoleon ; so besotting is 
the cup of unlimited power. In its self-punishing operation, 
it generally weakens the mind, until the enslaver becomes a 
slave, either to a mistress or a favorite, if not to both. 

There is a natural connection between despotic governments 
and depraved manners, — free governments and comparative 
purity. Free institutions not only open to the rich higher and 
more worthy objects of ambition than the gratification of the 
senses, but operate as a wholesome restraint upon the upper 
ranks, by making them dependent, in some degree, on the good 
opinion of the lower classes. Where character is power, we 
have the best security for general morality. 

Perhaps the worst thing ever uttered by Madame de Stael, 
was her speech to the Emperor of Eussia : — " Sir, your charac- 
ter is a constitution for- your country, and your conscience its 
guarantee;" nor is there a better kingly speech upon record 
than his reply, — " Even if it were so, I should never be any 
thing more than a lucky accident." 

DESTINY — The scapegoat which we make responsible for 
all our crimes and follies ; a necessity which we set down for 
invincible, when we have no wish to strive against it. 

DESTINY — Manifest — A political fallacy, by which 
second-rate statesmen endeavor to prove the righteousness of 
national Fillibusterism. They should remember that God, not 
Tammany, shapes the destiny of a great nation ; and that the 
self-elected interpreters of His will are madly " rushing in 
where angels fear to tread." That God, for his all-wise pur- 
poses, permitted a Napoleon to ravage Europe, does not make 
Napoleon less a wholesale murderer ; nor justify the silly 



86 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

bravadoes of pot-house-destiny men. Man proposes and God 
disposes. As with individuals, so with nations, " the coursers 
of Time hurry on the light car of our destiny, and all we can 
do is in cool self-possession to hold the reins with a firm hand, 
and to guide the wheels, now to the left, now to the right, 
avoiding a stone here or a precipice there." 

DIET — The edibles and potables that we turn into blood 
and bone — the matter that we metamorphose into mind. 
" Sir," said Bentley to one of his pupils, who had a predilec- 
tion for malt liquor, " if you drink ale you will think ale ; " 
and there was more truth in the averment than might at first 
sight be imagined, for body and mind must assimilate, to a 
certain extent, with that which sustains them. Look at the 
difference of disposition between the carnivorous and graminiv- 
orous animals : the latter, who seem to be nature's unweaned 
favorites, are peaceful as the bosom upon which they browse ; 
the former, doomed to be constantly tearing one another, and 
to live by blood and slaughter, are constitutionally savage and 
ferocious. Varieties of temperament in animals will often be 
found to have reference to the different food in which each 
race delights, and it is by no means improbable that the national 
character of human societies may be modified by their favorite 
diet. The taste of each, taking that word in its most extended 
acceptation, may be traceable to the palate. The suppleness 
and levity of the Italian may be derived from macaroni and 
vermicelli ; Dutch phlegm and obstinacy, from flat-fish, water- 
zootje, and schiedam ; German acerbity, mysticism, and melan- 
choly, from sour-krout, sausages, and vin de grave ; the insub- 
ordination of the Irish peelers and repealers, from potatoes ; 
French levity and vivacity, from ragouts and champagne ; and 
the solid but somewhat crude and uncivilized character of 
John Bull, from his feeding upon huge joints of underdone 
beef. 

DILEMMA — for the doctors. — Complaint having lately been 
made in a Yorkshire hospital, that an old Hibernian would not 
submit to the prescribed remedies, one of the committee pro- 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 87 

ceeded to expostulate with him, when he defended himself by 
exclaiming — " Sure, your honor, wasn't it a blister they wanted 
to put upon my back ? and I only tould 'em it was althegither im- 
possible, for I've such a mighty dislike to them blisters, that put 
'em where you will, they are sure to go agin my stomach." 

DILEMMA — Logical — a verbal checkmate. Aristotle 
wishing to refute the opinion of Protagoras, who maintained 
that there was nothing true in the world, argued thus : — " Your 
proposition is either true or false : if it is false, we are not, of 
course, bound to believe it ; if it is true, there is such a thing as 
truth in the world, and consequently your proposition is false." 
These clinches were once in great favor with the sophists and 
logicians, but they were never worth the pains bestowed upon 
them, and have deservedly fallen into oblivion. The puzzling 
instance given in Johnson's Dictionary under the word Dilem- 
ma, is recorded by Apuleius, as well as by Aulus Gellius in his 
Attic Nights. Our special pleading is the last remnant of 
these verbal quibbles, and the sooner it is exploded the better. 
The age of words is passing away, as well as the impostures 
and delusions to which they gave a species of sanction. 

In exploding these verbal frauds it should be well under- 
stood that they may be still practised, if we can -reduce the 
great enemy of mankind to a non plus, in imitation of the wily 
friar, who sold his soul to him upon condition that all his debts 
should be paid. Money was supplied in abundance, until he 
was extricated from his difficulties ; but when Satan came to 
claim the soul that was due to him, the friar answered, " Be- 
gone, thou swindler ! If I owe thee any thing, I am not yet 
out of debt, and if I do not owe thee any thing, why dost thou 
trouble me ? " 

Shrewd and quickwitted was the reply of the miser, who 
on being requested by a dervish to grant him a favor, said, 
" On one condition I will do whatever you require." — " What 
is that ? " — u Never to ask me for any thing." 

DINNER — A meal taken at supper time ; formerly con- 
sidered a means of enjoying society, and therefore moderate in 



88 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

expense and frequent in occurrence ; now given to display 
yourself, not to gratify your friends ; and inhospitably rare, 
because it is foolishly extravagant. 

John Bulwer, a quaint writer of the seventeenth century, 
especially recommends the following three dinner rules : — 
Stridor dentium — Altum silentium — Rumor gentium; which 
has been humorously translated, " Work for the jaws — A silent 
pause — Frequent Ha-has ! " 

Properly understood and used, an excellent and well- 
arranged dinner is the culminating point of all civilization. It 
is not only the descending morsel, and the enveloping sauce — 
but the rank, wealth, wit, and beauty which surround the 
meats — the learned management of light and heat — the silent 
and rapid services of the attendants — the smiling and sedulous 
host, proffering guests and relishes — the exotic bottles — the 
embossed plate — the pleasant remarks — the handsome dresses 
— the cunning artifices in fruit and farina ! The hour of dinner, 
in short, includes every thing of sensual and intellectual grati- 
fication which a great nation glories in producing. 

DISCIPLINE — Military — That subordination which is 
maintained upon the continent by the hope of distinction, in 
England by the fear of the cat-o'-nine-tails. Nothing is so 
reluctantly abandoned by despots, whether kings, pedagogues, 
officers, or magistrates, as any oppressive cruelty which they 
imagine to be connected with the maintenance of their author- 
ity. A tyrant not only gratifies his malignity, but saves all 
trouble of argument or proper management, by the use of the 
whip, which may account for the disgraceful floggings still so 
prevalent in our schools, army, and navy. This remnant of a 
barbarous age must soon pass away, and if our flogging disci- 
plinarians would pass away at the same time, we should all be 
gainers by their loss. The cat-o'-nine-tails must have as many 
lives as tails, or it never could have lasted so long. 

DISCONTENT — Being unhappy at the non-possession of 
that, of which the possession would not make us happy. "Whence 
comes it that most men are satisfied with their country, to 



THE UN" TRUMPET. 89 

whatever sufferings its climate may expose them, while few or 
none are satisfied with their lot ? In the former instance, a 
man is on a par with his neighbors ; in the latter, the mass 
being necessarily inferior to the few, pride makes them imagine 
that they are all too low, because they are not all at the top. 

To those who repine at the humbleness of their lot, without 
knowing to what eventual distinctions they may be destined, 
we recommend a perusal of the apologue with which Addison 
concludes one of his moral essays. A drop of water falling 
from the clouds into the ocean, became discontented with its 
insignificance, and complained that in the loss of its identity, 
it was in fact annihilated. In the midst of these murmurs, it 
was swallowed by an oyster, became converted, in process of 
time, into a gem, and finally constituted that celebrated pearl 
which adorns the top of the Persian diadem. 

DISCOVERER— That man is not the discoverer of any art 
who first says the thing ; but he who first says it so long, and 
so loud, and so clearly, that he compels mankind to hear him — 
the man who is so deeply impressed with the importance of the 
discovery that he will take no denial, but at the risk of fortune 
and fame, pushes through all opposition, and is determined 
that what he thinks he has discovered shall not perish for want 
of a fair trial. Other persons had noticed the effect of coal gas 
in producing light ; but Winsor worried the town with bad 
English for three winters before he could attract any serious 
attention to his views. Many persons broke stone before 
Macadam, but Macadam felt the discovery more strongly, stated 
it more clearly, persevered in it with greater tenacity, wielded 
his hammer, in short, with greater force than other men, and 
finally succeeded in bringing his plan into general use. 

DISCOVERY— differs from invention. The former may 
be accidental, and only makes known that which had previously 
existed ; the latter implies creation, or, at least, a new combi- 
nation of old materials. 

To surrender the fair honor of any discovery, by naming it 
after the reigning monarch, is an absurd act of sycophancy, 



90 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

which the world has too much good sense to confirm. No 
family ever deserved better of literature and science than the 
Medici ; and yet the name of the Medicean stars, assigned by 
Galileo to the satellites of Jupiter, never travelled beyond the 
confines of Tuscany, and was quickly dropped even in that 
country. At a later date, when the planet Ceres was discovered 
by Piazzi, it received the royal cognomen of Ferdinandea, an 
addition never recognized by Europe, and now forgotten 
everywhere. Botanists have very properly bestowed their 
own names, or those of their friends, upon the new or exotic 
plants which they have discovered or imported ; nor is it easy 
to conceive a more pleasing immortality than to descend to 
posterity, enshrined in the petals of a flower, like Hyacinthus, 
or the supposed child-deity of India. Sir Anthony Ashley, 
who first planted them in England, has a cabbage sculptured 
at his feet upon his monument ; a much more honorable trophy 
than all the herald's mummery, or the emblems of military 
prowess. A potato plant would have afforded the noblest 
crest for Sir Walter Ealeigh, were it not deemed more honor- 
able to destroy our fellow-creatures in war, than to minister 
to their gratification and support in peace. 

DISEASE — a new and fatal one. During the prevalence 
of the cholera in Ireland, a soldier hurrying into the mess-room, 
told his commanding officer that his brother had been carried 
off two days ago by a fatal malady, expressing his apprehen- 
sions that the whole regiment would be exposed to a similar 
danger in the course of the following week. " Good heavens ! " ■ 
ejaculated the officer, "what then did he die of?" "Why, 
your honor, he died of a Tuesday." 

DISTINCTION— with a difference. " I have no objection," 
said a leveller, " that the ranks below me should be preserved 
just as they are now, but I wish to have none above me ; and 
that is my notion of a fair and perfect equality." 

An instance of the distinction without a difference was 
offered by the Irishman who, having legs of different sizes, 
ordered his boots to be made accordingly. His directions were 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 91 

obeyed ; but, as he tried the smallest boot on bis largest leg, 
he exclaimed petulantly, " Confound the fellow ! I ordered him 
to make one larger than the other ; and, instead of that, he has 
made one smaller than the other." 

DISTINCTION'S— It is idle to talk of the abolition of dis- 
tinctions, for Nature herself has created them. A great and 
happy change, however, is taking place in our estimate of these 
honors. Every day adds to our reverence of intrinsic, and 
diminishes our respect for extrinsic superiority. Patents of no- 
bility, signed by the hand of God, are rising in general esteem, 
while those merely signed by the hand of a king are declining. 
Hereditary distinctions, whether of an exalting or degrading 
aspect, generally deteriorate their objects. It was once ques- 
tioned, whether a villein, or serf, could enter heaven, and the 
very doubt rendered him unfit for it, just as the certainty of 
succeeding to honors often disqualifies their inheritor from 
wearing them becomingly. 

DISTRESS — even when positive or superlative, is still 
only comparative. " Such is the pressure of the times in our 
town," said a Birmingham manufacturer to his agent in Lon- 
don, " that we have good workmen who will get up, the inside 
of a watch for eighteen shillings." — "Pooh! that is nothing, 
compared to London," replied his friend ; " we have boys here 
who will get up the inside of a chimney for sixpence ! " 

DRAM — A small quantity taken in large quantities by 
those who have few grains of sobriety, and no scruples of con- 
science. Horace Walpole records, that when one of his con- 
temporaries died, in consequence, as it was currently said, of 
an over-addiction to brandy, the escutcheon affixed to the 
house of the deceased exhibited the common motto of " Mors 
janua mtm ;" upon which a wag observed — " Surely there has 
been a mistake in this inscription : it should have been ' Mors 
aqua vitcsS " 

DRAMA — Modeeist — Every sort of drama, except tragedy 
and comedy ; such as melo-drama, hippo-drama, &c. 



92 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

DREAMS — The invisible visions to which we are awake 
in our sleep ; the life of death ; the sights seen by the blind ; 
the sounds heard by the deaf; the language of the dumb; the 
sensations of the insensible ; a mystery which may afford us 
some vague notion of the undeveloped powers of the human 
mind, waiting, perhaps, the longer sleep of death, before they 
receive a full expansion. Objects thus presented to us can 
only be a wild combination, we are told, of those with which 
we have been previously conversant ; but in these revelations, 
there seems to be an occasional apocalypse of another world, 
or, at least, a different state of being from our present existence. 
"What are the prevalent dreams of persons born blind ? This 
subject has not excited inquiry, but it seems of a nature to de- 
serve it, as it might lead to some very curious results. Are 
forms or figures presented to them, either animate or inani- 
mate, and if so, do they bear any resemblance to their origi- 
nals ? Every thing thus flitting before the mind's eye must be 
a creation, not a recollection, to him who can only have gath- 
ered vague notions of form from the touch, and can have no 
idea of color. The dreams of maniacs, could they be detailed, 
would supply matter for not less interesting speculation. We 
may imagine them to embody forth all that is gorgeous, mag- 
nificent, rapturous, and paradisiacal; or to evoke the most 
hideous and terrific phantasmagoria, according to the different 
moods of their madness. Somnambulism, which may be termed 
an intermediate affection -between dreaming and insanity, 
would also present many mental diagnostics, of the most curious 
character, could we " observingly distil them out." 

It has been asserted by medical writers, who have attentive- 
ly considered the subject, that our senses and organs sink to 
sleep in the following succession: — 1st, the sense of sight ; 2d, 
the taste; 3d, the smell; 4th, the hearing; 5th, the touch. 
The powers of the mind may, in the mean time, be inert, active 
or deranged, according to circumstances ; but they are never 
altogether coherent. The two principal theories of dreams 
suppose them to originate wholly in direct impressions on the 
senses during sleep ; or to be ascribable to the supremacy of the 
mind, which, being unfettered by objects of sense, takes a wider 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 93 

range. According to this latter supposition, how inconceivably 
eccentric and illimitable may be its flight, when it is released 
from its earthy tegument, and revels in the boundless wilds 
of imagination, as a liberated balloon soars into the invisible 
empyreum ! 

To illustrate total absence of judgment in all these phan- 
tasms, Dr. Johnson used to relate the following dream. He 
imagined himself to be engaged in a contest of wit, before a 
large literary party, with an adversary whose superior talents 
compelled him to retreat, filled with shame and mortification. 
"Had my judgment," argued the Doctor, "been as clear and 
active as my other mental powers, I should have recollected that 
my own head had furnished all the repartees of my supposed 
antagonist, and that I could not fail to be the victor, however 
the battle might terminate." 

An exceedingly corpulent man, who had suffered much 
from the intense heat of summer, dreamt, one sultry night, 
that for the sake of cooling himself, he got out of his flesh, and 
sat in his skeleton, suffering the air to blow through his ribs ; 
a mode of refrigeration which he found so delicious, that on 
awaking he could almost have cried, like Caliban, to fall asleep 
again. 

DRESS — External gentility, frequently used to disguise in- 
ternal vulgarity. "Wise men will neither be the first to adopt 
a new fashion, nor the last to abandon an old one ; for an 
affectation of singularity is only the desire to set, instead of 
following, the mode. Eccentricity of appearance is the con- 
temptible ambition of being personally known to those who do 
not know you by name. We may hold it slavish to dress ac- 
cording to the judgment of fools, and the caprice of coxcombs ; 
but are not we ourselves ioth, when we are singular in our 
attire ? Mean, indeed, though, doubtless, very just, must be 
the self-opinion of that man who can only hope to achieve 
distinction by the cut of his garments. The proverb tells us, 
to cut our coat according to our cloth ; but we are nowhere 
enjoined to cut out a character by a coat. 

Malvezzi says — " i vestimenti negli anirnali sono rnolto se- 



94 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

curi segni delta loro natura ; negli uomini del lor cervello." 
This may be illustrated by rags as well as finery. Socrates 
told Antisthenes, who affected shabbiness, that he saw his 
pride through the holes in his coat ; and the gay attire of the 
coxcomb only serves to prove the more clearly that he is "a 
leaden rapier in a golden sheath " — a cork leg in a silken 
stocking. 

DKUNKENKESS— A beastly, detestable, and often pun- 
ished vice, in the ignorant lower orders, whose ebriety is thrust 
upon the public eye as they reel along the streets, — but softened 
into "a glass too much," or being "a little elevated," when a 
well-educated gentleman is driven home in his own carriage, 
in a state of insensibility, and put to bed by his own servants. 

Droll, though not very logical or conclusive, was the reply 
of the tipsy Irishman, who, as he supported himself by the iron 
railings of Merrion-square, was advised by a passenger to be- 
take himself home. " Ah, now, be aisy ; I live in the square ; 
isn't it going round and round, and when I see my own door 
come up, won't I pop into it in a jiffey ?" 

DUELS — Bevenging yourself upon one who has injured 
you, by giving him a chance to take your life. Oftentimes, 
too, the injury is as fanciful as the so-called satisfaction is sil- 
ly. The occasions of duels are as various as the follies of the 
human head. 

In the eleventh century, two knights, clad in complete ar- 
mor, fought on horseback to determine . the proper form of 
public worship. The great founder of the Company of Jesus, 
Ignatius Loyola, fought a duel with a Moor whom he had 
vainly attempted to convert by argument. Barrington re- 
cords a laughable duel fought by a Mr. Frank Shelton with an 
exciseman, for running the butt end of a horsewhip down his 
throat the night before, while he lay drunk and sleeping with his 
mouth open. He notes that, during the preliminary negotia- 
tions, the exciseman insisted that snoring at a dinner-table was 
a personal offence to every gentleman in company, and re- 
fused to apologize, 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 95 

The duello was once a very prevalent and favorite mode of 
administering justice in Ireland ; and not being considered so 
brutal as bull-fights, or other beastly amusements of that na- 
ture, it was authorized by law, and frequently performed be- 
fore the high authorities and their ladies ; bishops, judges, and 
other persons high in office generally honoring the spectacle 
with their presence. Thus an old chronicler relates, how two 
Irish gentlemen, Connor MacOormac O'Connor, and Teige 
MacKilpatrick O'Connor, fought with broadswords and skeans 
(large knives) in the Castle of Dublin, in the presence of the 
archbishop and all the chief authorities and ladies of rank. 
They had hewed at each other for a full hour, when Mr. Mac- 
Kilpatrick O'Connor happening to miss his footing, Mr. Cor- 
mac O'Connor began to cut his head off very expertly with a 
knife ; which, after a good deal of cutting, struggling, and 
hacking, he was at length so fortunate as to effect ; and hav- 
ing got his head clear off the shoulders, he handed it to the 
lords-justices, (who were present,) and by whom the head and 
neck were most graciously received. 

DUELLING — how to avoid. This desirable immunity 
may be accomplished by a pleasanter method than by plagiar- 
izing Mr. O'Connell's oath, — videlicet, by falling in love, when 
you may decline a challenge after the following fashion of one 
of our old amatory poets — 

'"Tis not the fear of death or smart, 
Makes me averse to fight, 
But to preserve a tender heart, 
Not mine but Celia's right. 

" Then let your fury be supprest, 
Not me, but Celia, spare, 
Your sword is welcome to my breast, 
When Celia is not there." 

DUELLIST — A moral coward, seeking to hide the pusil- 
lanimity of his mind, by affecting a corporeal courage. In- 
stead of discharging a pistol, the resort of bullies and bravoes, 
the really brave soul will dare to discharge its duty to God 



96 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

and man, by refusing to break the laws of both. He is the 
true hero who can exclaim in the language of a French writer, 
" Je crains Dieu, cher Abner, et je rCai cPautre crainte" — " I 
fear God, my dear Abner, but I have no other fear." 

DULNESS — Do not see the present work. "I cannot 
exactly perceive the scope of your argument, and therefore 
I cannot adopt your opinion," said a gentleman with whom 
Dr. Parr had been arguing. " Then, sir," said the doctor, "I 
can only say that you have the dulness of lead without its 

malleability." Serjeant K having made two or three 

mistakes, while conducting a cause, petulantly exclaimed, " I 
seem to be inoculated with dulness to-day." "Inoculated, 
brother? " said Erskine, "I thought you had it in the natural 



DUMBFOUNDER — A verbal checkmate which incapaci- 
tates your adversary from making another move of his jaws. 
" I do not write for fools," said a boastful and asinine pretend- 
er to literature : " I only wish to please those who have 
the same taste as myself, and to do this, every leaf that I pro- 
duce must be full of point. Such being my feelings, what 
would you have me give to the world ? " " Thistles ! " re- 
plied a wag. 

Dr. Parr was celebrated for the unsparing severity with 
which he could deal out his dumbfounders, when the occasion 
justified their infliction. A flippant chatterer, after having 
spoken slightingly of the miracles, exclaimed, " Well but, 
Doctor, what think you of the mark of the cross upon the 
ass's back, which they say indicates the precise spot where 
the animal was smitten by Balaam?" — "Why, sir," replied 
the Doctor, " I say that if you had a little more of the cross, 
and a good deal less of the ass, -it would be much better for 
you." Upon another occasion, a shallow smatterer tauntingly 
asked him why he did not write a book : — " Sir, I know a 
method by which I might soon write a very large one." 
" Ay, Doctor ! how so ? " " Why, sir, by putting in all that I 
know, and all that you do not know." 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 97 

DUTY — Financially a tax which we pay to the public ex- 
cise and customs ; morally, that which we are very apt to 
excise in our private customs. " Les hommes" says Voltaire, 
" se piquent toujours de remplir un devoir qui les distingue.'' 1 
If singularity be a distinction, they might easily attain it by a 
conscientious discharge of religious and moral duty. 

DUTY — Paeental — Sometimes consists in making our 
children a stalking-horse for our own failings and vices." Of 
all the virtuous disguises which self-love is made to assume, 
the most accommodating, the most sanctimonious, the most de- 
mure-looking, is the mask which gives to us the appearance of 
loving others. 

The avaricious man, the gambling speculator, the fraudulent 
dealer have all the same plausible excuse ; they are making 
fortunes for their children, which, however, they never give to 
them, when acquired, until the hand of death wrenches the 
booty from their grasp. It is remarkable too, that many of the 
loving fathers who boast what great things they are thus doing 
for their offspring, are the last to do small things for them, re- 
fusing them the most trivial indulgence, ruling them with a 
rod of iron, and making them at one time the stalking-horse, 
and at another the scape-goat of their own humors and pro- 
pensities. Oh ! how pleasant is it when the affectionate parent 
can in this manner throw a garb of goodness over his evil pas- 
sions, and sin with a safe conscience ! 

DYSPEPSIA— 

Ah, me ! what mischiefs from the stomach rise ! 

What fatal ills, beyond all doubt or question ! 
How many a deed of high and bold emprise 

Hath been prevented by a bad digestion ! 
I ween the savory crust of filthy pies 

Hath made full many a man to quake and tremble, 
Filling his belly with dyspeptic sighs, 

Until a huge balloon it doth resemble. 
Thus do our lower parts impede the upper, 

And much the brain's good works molest and hinder ; 
We gorge our cerebellum with hot supper, 

And burn, with drams, our viscera to a cinder, 
Choosing our arrows from Disease's quiver, 

Till man in misery lives to loathe his liver. 

5 



98 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

EAE — Pleasures op the — The most spiritual of all enjoy- 
ments, the least sensual of the senses. Where can its sensi- 
bilities be so well cultivated, and impart such a hallowing 
character to delight, as amid the various and exquisite harmo- 
nies of nature, the vocal fields, the rustling woods, the deep- 
mouthed and sonorous sea ? Let each of these pleasant sounds, 
as it falls upon the drum of the ear, be as a reveille, calling 
upon our thoughts to arise, and be wafted heavenward upon 
the syrnphonious air. These are the feelings that make all 
music sacred. No wonder that the deaf are often morose and 
dejected, while the blind, shut out as they are from the world, 
almost invariably draw in cheerfulness through the ear. 

EATING AND DKINKING— Supplying the lamp of life 
with cotton and oil. "The proverb's somewhat musty," but it 
cannot be too often repeated that we should " eat to live, not 
live to eat," for if we make the stomach a cemetery of food, 
the body will soon become the sepulchre of the soul. 

" Pone guise metas, ut sit tibi longior setas," 

whether in this world or the next : for to make a god of your 
belly, is to sell yourself to the devil. 

One half of mankind pass their lives in thinking how they 
shall get a dinner, and the other in thinking what dinner they 
shall get ; and the first are much less injured by occasional 
fasts, than are the latter by constant feasts. 

ECHO — The shadow of a sound — a voice without a mouth, 
and words without a tongue. Echo, though represented as a 
female, never speaks till she is spoken to, and at every repe- 
tition of what she has heard, continues to make it less, an ex- 
ample recommended to the special imitation of chatterboxes 
and scandal-mongers. 

EDUCATION — The best rules to form a young man are, 
to talk little, to hear much, to reflect alone upon what has 
passed in company, to distrust one's own opinions, and value 
others that deserve it. 



THE TIN TEUMPET. 99 

EFFECTS— do not always result from causes, as many a 
lawyer, ^vhose bill remains unpaid, knows to his cost. A suitor 
for the hand of a young lady at Harrowgate, had been repeat- 
edly warned that she was of a violent and ungovernable tem- 
per, but persisted in attributing the information to envy or 
mistake. " At length," said the lover, relating his mishap to 
a friend, " I got into an argument with my dear Maria about a 
mere trifle, when she so far forgot herself, in a moment of pas- 
sion, as to throw a cup of tea in my face." " And what was 
the effect ? " inquired his auditor. " Oh ! that completely open- 
ed my eyes ! " 

"I was rather hot at the moment," said a man when asked 
how he came to commit an assault, " and so I struck the fel- 
low." Here was an instance of an effect before a cause. Per- 
cussion generally produces heat, but in this case the heat pro- 
duced the percussion. 

EFFEMINACY — Wearing moral petticoats. A masculine 
woman is much more endurable than an effeminate man ; for, 
though both are abandoning their proper sphere, the former 
seeks to rise above, the latter to sink beneath it. There is an 
ambition about the one, which, though it may be offensive, 
does not move our scorn ; whereas there is a pitiful meanness 
in the other, which always renders it contemptible. 

Even among our senators, we have ringleted effeminates, 
whom Nature, evidently designing them for barbers, supplied 
with ready-made blocks, giving them, at the same time, the 
tonsorial loquacity that enables them to speak to every thing — • 
except the point, and to cut every thing — except a joke. Let 
them wield the comb, and leave the making of laws to others ; 
let them braid their hair, and cease to upbraid reformers ; let 
them abstain from Congress, over the doors of which should 
be inscribed the words of Ovid — 

"Sint procul a nobis juvenes lit fsemina compti." 

Let them perpend the following passage of Seneca — " Horum 
quis es% qui non malit rempublicam turbari, quam comam 
suam ? qui non sollicitior sit de capitis sui decore, quam de sa- 



100 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

lute generis Tiumani f " — " Whicb of tliese effeminates -would 
not rather see the State thrown into disorder than Jhis hair ? 
Which of them is not more anxious about the becoming ar- 
rangement of his curls, than the welfare of the whole human 
race?" 

EGOTISM — Suffering the private I to be too much in the 
public eye. We are offended at the arrogance of Cardinal 
"Wolsey's ego et rex meus; but there is a species of egotism so 
dignified and noble, that in the elevation which it gives to oui 
common nature, we lose all sense of individual presumption. 
Such is the character of the following passage from Milton : 

"Tor the world, I count it not as an inn but a hospital; 
and a place not to live but to die in. The world that I regard 
is myself. It is mine own frame that I cast mine eye on ; for 
the other, I use it but like my globe, and turn it round some- 
times for my recreation. Men that look upon my outside, pe- 
rusing only my condition and fortunes, do err in my altitude, 
for I am above Atlas his shoulders. The earth is a point, not 
only in respect of the heavens above us, but of that heavenly 
and celestial part within us. That mass of flesh that circum- 
scribes me, limits not my mind. That surface that tells the 
heavens they have an end, cannot persuade me I have any. 
I take my circle to be.above three hundred and sixty. Though 
the number of the arc do measure my body, it comprehendeth 
not my mind : whilst I study to find how I am a microcosm, 
or little world, I find myself something more than the great. 
There is surely a piece of divinity to us — something that was 
before the elements, and owing no homage unto the sun. He 
that understands not this much, hath not his introductions or 
first lesson, and is yet to begin the alphabet of man." 

ELEVATION" — of station, is very often accompanied with 
depression of spirits. Success disappoints us; we feel our- 
selves out of our sphere, and sigh for the lost happiness of our 
humbler days. "You see how languid the carp are," said 
Madame de Maintenon to her friend, when looking into a marble 
fish-pond at Marly: "they are like me — they regret their 
mud" 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 101 

ELOPEMENT — Beginning in disobedience that which 
generally terminates in misery. 

ELOQUENCE — consists in the exuberance of beautiful 
images — in simple and sublime conceptions — in passionate but 
plain words ; not in a studious arrangement of sonorous, ex- 
otic, and sesquipedal phrases. 

EMBALMING — Making a flesh statue — eternalizing a 
corpse — perpetuating the perishable with more pains than we 
take to save that which is immortal. 

ENDOWMENTS— Chtteoh— See Poison; but do not see 
the Bible. An old tradition bears, that when Constantine, 
the Emperor, first endowed the Church, a voice was heard 
from heaven, crying out, "This day is poison poured into 
her ? " Whatever may be thought of the tradition, no one 
can doubt the fulfilment of the prophecy. 

Wherever Eeligion has been the mother of Wealth, the 
daughter has invariaby devoured the parent. 

ENNUI — A French word for an English malady, which 
generally arises from the want of a want, and constitutes the 
complaint of those who have nothing to complain of. By the 
equalizing provisions of nature, the rich, idle, and luxurious, 
are thus brought down to the level of their seeming inferiors, 
and made to envy those who envy them. When this ugly 
Goliath haunts the mind, he is only to be subdued by exertion 
and occupation. — " Throw but a stone, the giant dies." Au- 
thors have too much to do with printers' devils, to be annoyed 
with blue devils. They may inflict, but they seldom suffer 
ennui. No exorcism for the spleen and the vapors like that 
of the Muse. When Bellerophon went forth to conquer the 
Chimsera he mounted Pegasus. 

ENTHUSIASM— That effervescence of the heart, or the 
imagination, which is the most potent stimulus of our nature, 
where it stops short of mental intoxication. " Conscience," 



102 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

says Madame de Stael, " is, doubtless, sufficient to conduct the 
coldest character into the road of virtue ; but enthusiasm is to 
conscience what honor is to duty : there is in us a superfluity 
of soul, which it is sweet to consecrate to the beautiful, 
when the good has been accomplished. Our genius and our 
imagination require to be gratified in this world ; and the law 
of duty, however sublime it may be, is not sufficient to make 
us taste all the wonders of the heart and the head." 

Many years ago, at Florence, the loiterers in the Tribune 
were startled by the sudden rush into the room of a little 
man, whose literary fame gave him high claims to intuitive 
taste. He placed himself, with clasped hands, before the chief 
attraction in that room of treasures, and, "There," he mur- 
mured, " is the Yenus de Medici, and here I must stay — for- 
ever and ever ! " He had scarcely uttered these words, each 
more deeply and solemnly than the preceding, when an ac- 
quaintance entered, and the enthusiast, making a hasty inquiry 

if Lady had arrived, left the room, not to return again 

that morning. Before the same statue, another distinguished 
countryman, whose reputation for taste was better founded, 
and whose sensibility old age had not humbled, used to pass 
an hour daily. His acquaintance respected his raptures, and 
kept aloof ; but a young lady, whose attention was attracted 
by sounds that did not seem expressive of admiration, ventured 
to approach, and found the poet sunk in profound but not 
silent slumber. 

ENVY — Punishing ourselves for being inferior to our 
neighbors. If, instead of looking at what our superiors pos- 
sess, we could see what they actually enjoy, there would be 
much less envy, and more pity, in the world. 

" The envious man," says St. Gregory, " is made unhappy, 
not by his own misfortunes, but by the successes of others ; 
and, on the other hand, he does not enjoy his own good for- 
tune so much as the misfortunes of his neighbors." — " Invidus 
non suis malis, sed alienis bonis infelix est; et contrd, non 
suo bono sed malis proximis felix." Our affected contempt of 
greatness is only an envious attempt to lift ourselves above 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 103 

the great, and thus achieve an imaginary superiority. M Since 
we cannot attain grandeur," says Montaigne,." let us take our 
revenge by abusing it." 

The envy that grudges the successes for which it would 
want the courage to contend, was well rebuked by the French 
Marshal Lefevre. One of his friends, expressing the most un- 
bounded admiration of his magnificent hotel, and exquisite 
cuisine, exclaimed, at the end of every phrase, " How fortunate 
you are ! " — " I see you envy me," said the marshal ; " but come, 
you shall have all that I possess at a much cheaper rate than 
I myself paid for it ; step down with me into the court-yard, 
you shall let me fire twenty musket shots at you, at the dis- 
tance of thirty paces, and if I fail to bring you down, all that 
I have is yours. "What ! you refuse ! " said the marshal, seeing 
that his friend demurred. " Know, that before I reached my 
present eminence, I was obliged to stand more than a thousand 
musket shots, and sacre ! those who pulled the triggers were 
nothing like thirty paces from me." 

EPICURE — An epicure has no sinecure ; he is unmade, 
and eventually dished by made dishes. Champagne falsifies 
its name, when once it begins to affect his system ; his stom- 
ach is so deranged in its punctuation, that his colon makes 
a point of coming to a full stop ; keeping it up late, ends in 
his being laid down early ; and the oon vivant who has been 
always hunting pleasure, finds at last, that he has been only 
whipping and spurring, that he might be the sooner in at his 
own death ! 

EPITAPHS — Mortuary lies. Giving a good character to 
parties on their going into a new place, who sometimes had a 
very bad character in the place they have just left. For the 
de mortuis nil nisi oonum, it would be an improvement to 
substitute nil nisi verum ; since the fear of posthumous disre- 
pute would be an additional incentive to living good conduct. 
No man could pass through a truth-telling church-yard, with- 
out feeling the full value of character. 

What can more impressively stamp the evanescence of 



104 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

man and all his works, than an epitaph on a whole nation, 
which shall afford nearly the sole evidence of its ever having 
existed? Such are the cinerary urns of the Etruscans, of 
whose history we have little other record than their tomhs, 
and of whose literature few other remains than their alphabet. 
A whole empire stat nominis umbra ! The signs have sur- 
vived the ideas of which they were the symbols : the chisel 
has outlasted the statue. Yolterra, and other great Etruscan 
cemeteries, may be termed the skeletons of their cities. 

Eew more appropriate epitaphs than the common Latin 
one of " Sum quod eris, fui quod sis " — " I am what thou 
shalt be, I was what thou art." 

Beloe, in his anecdotes, gives a good punning epitaph on 
"William Lawes, the musical composer, who was killed by the 
Eoundheads. 

" Concord is conquer'd ! In this urn there lies 
The master of great Music's mysteries ; 
And in it is a riddle, like the cause, 
Will Lawes was slain by men whose Wills were Laws.'''' 

More witty than decorous was the epitaph composed in 
the reign of Henry III., for a Sir John Calfe, who died 
young,— 

" O Deus omnipotens, Vituli miserere Joannis, 
Quern mors pneveniens noluit esse bovem." 

Sir Christopher Wren's inscription in St. Paul's Church— 
" Si monumentum quceris, circumspice " — would be equally 
applicable to a physician, buried in a churchyard ; both being 
interred in the midst of their own works. 

In the epitaph of Cardinal Onuphrio at Rome, there 
breathes a solemn, almost a bitter conviction of the vanity of 
earthly grandeur — "Hicjacet umbra, cinis — nihil " — " Here lies 
a shadow, ashes — nothing." There is a great tenderness and 
beauty in the two lines found upon an ancient Roman tomb, 
supposed to be addressed by a young wife to her surviving 
husband : 

"Immaturi peri, sed tu, felicior, annos 
Vive tuos, conjux optime, vive meos." 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 



105 



But a still more simple and affecting epitaph is the follow- 
ing, translated verbatim from a tomb at Montmartre, near 
Paris : — " To the memory of M. Jobart, a most excellent hus- 
band and father. His inconsolable widow still continues to 
carry on the grocery business in the Eue St. Denis, No. 242, 
near the Cafe Ohinois." 

EQUAL — That which a man of talent will seldom find 
among his superiors. As the winds and waters, abrasion and 
gravitation, are perpetually tending towards a physical equal- 
ization, by« lowering mountains and filling up valleys ; so, in 
the moral world, does the progress of social improvement 
gradually tend to equalize all ranks, by reducing the higher, 
and elevating the lower — a levelling process, equally con- 
ducive to the happiness and melioration of both. Civilization 
is, in fact, a gravitation towards that happy medium which is 
the centre of attraction to the social circle. Almost every 
man is a loser by being elevated above the sphere to which 
he is habituated. When the Duke of Orleans proposed to 
make Fontenelle perpetual President of the Academy of Sci- 
ences, his reply was — " Take not from me, my Lord, the 
delight of living with my equals." 

ERROR, of Calculation — The life of nine-tenths of man- 
kind is a gross error of calculation, since they attach them- 
selves to the evanescent, and neglect the permanent, accumu- 
lating riches in a world from which they are constantly run- 
ning away, and laying up no treasures in that eternity to 
which every day, hour, minute, brings them nearer and 
nearer. 

ESPEIT DE CORPS— is a corporate partiality or preju- 
dice ; a feeling of clanship and confraternity ; a selfishness at 
second hand, which induces us to prefer the members of our 
own club, guild, or coterie, not only to others, but to reason and 
justice. It prefers Plato to truth, even though Plato be per- 
sonally unknown, provided he belongs to the same clique. 
Nationality is but esprit de corps on a large scale, selfishness 
5* 



106 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

spread over the surface of a whole country ; and the propen- 
sity sometimes exhibits itself in still more extensive divisions. 
In hunting or baiting wild beasts, there is a strong feeling of 
humanity, or, rather, of inhumanity, against bestiality. We 
sympathize with the basest of our own species, rather than 
with the noblest of the animal race. Among ourselves, there 
is a sexual esprit de corps, — the men siding with the males, the 
women with the females ; the single with the single, and the 
married with the married. Of this latter propensity advan- 
tage was taken by an unfortunate Irishman, who, being ar- 
raigned for accidentally killing his wife, contrived,, by object- 
ing to the bachelors, to procure a jury of married men, when 
he stated that the deceased, an habitual drunkard, had used 
the most insulting language at the moment of the fatal occur- 
rence. This appeal came so completely home to the business 
and bosoms of his auditors, several of whom had not improb- 
ably been placed in similar circumstances, that they were 
presently agreed in their decision, when the foreman coming 
forward, and addressing himself to the judge, exclaimed, with 
a voice and look of great energy — " Please, my Lord, our var- 
dict is — Sarved her right ! " 

ESTATE — a landed one for all! — Terra Firma for my 
money. Well may it be called real property ; there is none 
other that deserves the name. What are public securities, as 
they are impudently termed ? Ask the impoverished bond- 
holders of the South American States, or of Greece. Neither 
their new nor old governments, neither despotism nor repub- 
licanism, can give certain tangibility or visibility to that ghost 
of defunct money yclept a dividend. What will tithes soon 
be worth in England ? — what they are now worth in Ireland. 
In ten years, the claim for tenths will be no more observed 
than are the ten commandments at present. What is the 
value of houses ? It is notorious that they are everywhere 
falling, especially the very old ones ; rents threaten to be all 
peppercorns ; house owners will not get salt to their porridge, 
even if they distrain upon their tenants and make quarter day 
a day without quarter. No — give me land. The man who 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 107 

walks upon his own estate carries himself erect, and plants 
his foot upon the ground with an air of confidence and conse- 
quence. 

Perhaps I feel this the more sensibly, because I have not a 
single acre in possession. Nothing, however, can prevent my 
succeeding to a small estate which I have lately been inspect- 
ing. It certainly possesses many advantages, being tithe-free, 
and the land-tax redeemed. In this snug retreat, which is 
perfectly sequestered, you are surrounded with wood, and yet 
close to a populous neighborhood, to the parish church, and 
the high road. Its proprietor enjoys several privileges and 
advantages : he pays no taxes, is exempt from serving in the 
militia, or sitting upon juries, his privacy is undisturbed by 
the impertinent intrusion of neighbors, he has no cares by 
day, and he is sure of a sound sleep at night. "When a new 
occupant . comes to take possession, he usually arrives in a 
coach and four, with numerous attendants, and he is not only 
received with bell-ringing, but the clergyman, and a portion 
of the parishioners, go out to meet him, and escort him home 
with much ceremony. The house, though it can hardly be 
called any thing better than a mere country box, has so many 
recommendations, that there is no instance of an occupant quit- 
ting it, after he has once given it a fair trial. 

Eeaders ! whether gentle or simple, you need not envy me 
my expectations. A similar landed estate is entailed upon 
every one of you, and upon your children's children. If you 
want a description of it, refer to Blair's poem of — "The 
Grave." 

One of the Roman emperors wept that nothing could pre- 
vent the master of the wide world from being finally impris- 
oned in an urn. I would counsel some of our landed propri- 
etors — 

"large-acred men, 
Lords of fat Evesham, and of Lincoln fen " — 

who, in the pride of their possessions, " bestride the narrow 
earth like a Colossus," to cast their eyes downwards, if look- 
ing upwards will not teach them humility, and to reflect that 
their huge estates must inevitablv shrink into six feet by two ! 



108 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

ETYMOLOGY — Sending vagrant words back to their own 
parish. It was said of Menage, that in requiring every word 
to surrender its passport, he not only inquired whence it came, 
but whither it was going. 

An ancient grammarian tells us that the Greek word a<», to 
breathe, consists of alpha and omega, the first and last letters 
of the alphabet, because, to inspire, and to expire, form the 
beginning and ending of man's life. This is a fine instance of 
va-Ttpov nporcpov, or putting the cart before the horse ; the 
learned philologist having forgotten- that men breathe before 
they speak, and that languages long preceded the time of Cad- 
mus and the invention of letters and alphabets. "While upon 
the subject, I may mention that the word sack is found in all 
languages, which a profound antiquary has explained, by sug- 
gesting that it was necessary to leave that primitive word, in 
order that every man, when he took his departure from the 
tower of Babel, might ask for his own bag. Titles of dignity, 
derived from age, seem also to have spread from the same 
root into a great variety of languages ; our sir, signor, senator, 
and perhaps seneschal, being identical with the scheik, shah, 
and aga of the Orientals, and the schachem of the red Indians. 
Titles inferring superior age do not, however, always com- 
mand our respect, as, for instance, in the case of our London 
elder or aldermen. 

Somewhat far-fetched was the conceit of an erudite ety- 
mologist, who maintained that the term bagpipe was origi- 
nally a Hebrew word, signifying a larger sort of sackbut, sack 
and bag being synonymous terms, and a butt being half a pipe. 

Learned philologists are very apt to imitate the ignorant 
butcher, who spent the whole morning in searching for the 
knife which he held in his mouth — a wild-goose chase, which 
has been eminently illustrated in their endless wanderings for 
the origin of the word danger, when it was difficult to stir a 
step without stumbling over its real etymology. "We need 
not go any further back than the siege of Troy to discover it 
at once. After the capture of that city by the well-known 
stratagem of the wooden horse, an event with which every 
Koman became familiar, only twelve hundred years afterwards, 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 109 

through the writings of Virgil, it was customary to exclaim, 
whenever any fraud or trick was suspected, " Danaos gerit? " 
— " Are there any Greeks in this pretended horse ?" — mean- 
ing any cheat or imposture. The phrase was soon proverbial, 
and with the habitual indolence of the Italians, was eventually 
contracted into one word, by taking the initial syllable of 
each ; so that whenever they smelt a rat, as we say in Eng- 
lish, or anticipated any perils, they exclaimed, interrogatively, 
" Sanger ?" Is it not almost incredible, that so obvious a deri- 
vation should have been overlooked by the most acute of our 
etymologists ? Henceforth let us hear no more of the butcher 
and his knife. 

In searching for the signification of words, we are not, 
however, always to take them au pied de la lettre, or we 
might define a hypocrite to be a judge of horses — a sycophant, 
as a figseer — a beldam, as a handsome lady — consideration, as 
a collection of stars — understanding, as a pair of shoes — and 
sincere, as unwaxed. Into these and similar errors, the en- 
lightened etymologist is in no fear of falling, for he will ever 
bear in mind the fundamental rule of his art, viz., to pay little 
attention to consonants and none to vowels. Why should let- 
ters obstruct him when he is considering things of such im- 
portance as words ? 

EXAGGERATION" — Intemperate. Diminishing by addi- 
tion, as the word small is made smaller by appending two 
more letters to it. When a man asserts too much, whether 
in the shape of praise or censure, we take our revenge by fall- 
ing into an opposite error, and believe too little. The same 
effect is often produced by that confusion of ideas or terms 
which is designated a bull. A Radical, inveighing against the 
rapacity of the clergy, gave it as his decided opinion, that if 
they had their own way they would raise the tithes from a 
tenth to a twentieth. On the other hand, an intended dimi- 
nution, by the same figure of speech, may amount to an exag- 
geration. " I have just met our old acquaintance Daly," said 
an Irishman to his friend, " and was sorry to see he has almost 
shrunk away to nothing. You are thin, and I am thin, but 



110 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

lie is thinner than both of us put together." Did the Hiber- 
nian sailor exaggerate or diminish, when, in describing the 
weather, he said, " There was but little wind, but what there 
was, was uncommonly high." 

EXAMPLE — It is much more easy to imitate bad example 
than good, because it has our natural inclination on its side. 
Perverse natures find a positive gratification in doing wrong. 
A man of this stamp, who was remarkably fond of pork, once 
expressed his regret that he had not been born a Jew, in order 
that he might enjoy the double pleasure of eating his favorite 
viand, and sinning at the same time. 

EXCEPTIONS — prove every rule, as we are told, except 
the rule that " every rule has its exceptions." Nothing can 
be rendered more exceptionable than an exception, even when 
accompanied with an invidious eulogy. According to Saville, 
poets are the best of all authors — except prose writers. 

F , defending a kind-hearted unmarried woman, whose 

character, however, was far from immaculate, exclaimed, " Out 
of the pale of marriage and celibacy ^ I protest that I do not 
know a more respectable person." Cases may occur where 
parties are not to be conciliated, either by their inclusion or 
exclusion. "How many fools, including yourself, went to 
the lecture on phrenology ?" demanded a collegian of his com- 
rade, who, instead of answering the inquiry, took the term 
applied to him in high dudgeon. " Well, then," resumed his 
friend, " how many fools were there without reckoning your- 
self?" 

Under this head we may insert one of the very few jokes 
attributed to William Pitt. As Lord Warden of the Cinque 
Ports, he presided at a public meeting held in Dover, during 
the war, for the purpose of raising a volunteer corps, when 
the secretary, in drawing up the conditions on which they 
were to be embodied, said to the chairman, " I suppose, sir, 
that I am to insert the usual clause — not to serve out of the 
country." — " Certainly, certainly," smiled Pitt, " except in 
case of invasion ! " 



THE TIN TRUMPET. Ill 

Few will be unacquainted with Swift's saving clause, when, 
in his anxiety to promote the products and manufactures of 
the Irish, he recommended them to burn every thing that 
came from England, except her coals. 

EXCULPATION— A satisfactory one. " My good friend ! " 
exclaimed an enraged author, who had been lampooned and 
libelled in a review, " I have strong reason to suspect that I 

have received this stab in the dark from that rascal M ." 

— " Make your mind perfectly easy," said his friend ; " M 

is the last man to give you a stab in the dark ; first, because 
he always held you in light estimation; and, secondly, because 
I know him to be a fellow who would not stick at any thing." 

Ingenious enough, though, perhaps, not literally true, was 
the excuse of the day-boarder, who, being asked one morning 
why he came to school so late, replied that, owing to the hard 
frost and the slipperiness of the ground, he had taken two 
steps backwards for one step forwards. " In that case," in- 
quired the master, " how did you manage to get here at all ? " 
— " Oh, sir ! I turned about and came the other way." 

EXCUSE — Confessing our faults by attempting to excuse 
them — Qui s 'excuse s 1 accuse. Good intentions, with which, 
according to Wesley, hell is paved, are no defence of evil ac- 
tions. We have all of us pleas and evasions enough not only 
for leaving undone what we ought to have done, but for doing 
what we ought not to have done. 

A gentleman, who had just put aside two bottles of capital 
ale to recreate some friends, discovered, just before dinner, 
that his servant, a country bumpkin, had emptied them both. 
" Scoundrel ! " said the master, " what do you mean by this ?" 
" Why, sir, I saw, plain enough, by the clouds, that it were 
going to thunder, so I drank up the yale at once, lest it should 
turn sour, for there's nothing I do abominate like waste." 
Fuseli, when he failed in any of his serious caricatures, used 
to complain that nature put him out : and the sluttish house- 
maid, when scolded for the untidiness of the chambers, ex- 
claimed, " I'm sure, the rooms would be clean enough, if it 



112 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

were not for the nasty sun, which is always showing the dirty 
corners." 

EXPEDIENTS — Kemedies for half our pains and sorrows, 
did we but know how to find and to apply them. There must 
certainly be a charm in enacting the part of Jaques — in having 
" a cue for villanous melancholy," and a " sigh like Tom 
o'Bedlam." "Whether it be that our self-love is gratified by 
exciting sympathy, or our vanity by being made the subject of 
conversation, it is unquestionable that we cling to our little 
ills and ailments as if they conferred a sort of distinction. 
Never could I entirely agree with the pensive poet when he 
exclaims — 

" Go ! you may call it madness, folly, 
You shall not chase my griefs away, 
There's such a charm in melancholy, 
I would not if I could be gay." 

But I can accord with the French writer, who affirms, that 
a woman always finds her physician and confessor the most 
delightful companions in the world, because she is constantly 
talking to them about herself, her complaints, and her pecca- 
dilloes. Men are precisely the same in the auricular confes- 
sions of society, and almost any girl may be sure of winning 
their affections, provided she be a patient and persevering lis- 
tener to their aches and annoyances, real or imaginary. This 
must be the secret reason why we often refuse to avail ourselves 
of the expedients which would effectually remove all our griev- 
ances, and which are too palpable to have escaped our notice. 
A lady, of delicate health, who loved to talk of her rheums 

and rheumatics, complained to S that she rarely went out 

to make purchases without catching cold, because they never 

kept their shop-doors shut. " My dear madam," said S , 

" how easily you might avoid all this ! You should make it 
a rule never to go a shopping except on Sunday." " You sot 
of a fellow ! " exclaimed a poor woman -to her husband ; " you 
are always at the public-house, getting drunk with hot purl ? 
while I am at home with nothing to drink but cold water." — 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 113 

" Cold, you silly jade ? " hiccoughed her husband, " why don't 
you warm it?" 

Strange, that neither of the females should have previously 
hit upon such obvious and satisfactory expedients ! Infinitely 
quick and apt in expedients, was the manager of a country 
theatre, who, when requested by a lady of rank in the neigh- 
borhood, to get up the play of Henry the Eighth, regretted 
that the state of his company would not allow it ; but added 
that they could very well manage to perform the two parts 
of Henry the Fourth, which would come to exactly the same 
thing. 

EXTEMPORE— A premeditated impromptu. 

EYE-GLASS — A toy which enables a coxcomb to see 

others, and others to see that he is a coxcomb. 

FABLES — Giving human intellects to brutes, in imitation * 
of nature, who sometimes gives brute intellects to men. 

FACE— The silent echo of the heart. 

FACT — It is a fact that before we begin to think we seem 
to know every thing ; while when we set about thinking in 
earnest, we seem to know nothing. 

FALSE POINTS — The author who pays more attention to 
the manner than the matter of his writings, and excites an 
expectation by his studied conceits and antitheses, which is 
not justified by the subject or the sentiment, may be compared 
to an ill-trained dog, which by stopping to make a false point 
where there are no birds, only makes game of his master. 
Punning writers are comical dogs of this sort, who often raise 
our expectation, but seldom enable us to bring down a thought, 
or put any thing into our memory-bag. There are dull dogs, 
on the contrary, who weary you by beating about the bush, 
and who seem to make a point of never making a point, even 
though they may be surrounded by numerous coveys of intel- 
lectual game. The writings of Thomas Carlyle constitute a 
well-stocked preserve of valuable thoughts, intrenched in such 



114 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

a chevaux-de-frise of crooked, crabbed, and impenetrable lan- 
guage, that nobody can get at them. Some one said of his 
stile that it was a five-barred gate with spikes at top, and furze 
bushes on either side. It is not any known tongue, it is 
Oarlylese, or perhaps a variety of those that sprung up in the 
hotbed of Mr. Irving's chapel. One cannot defend its obscu- 
rity, as Balzac did that of Tertullian, by saying that it resem- 
bles the darkness of polished ebony, which throws a certain 
splendor around. Through such impediments, few men would 
think of forcing their way, any more than of breaking their 
teeth with a hickory nut for the sake of the kernel. 

There are conversational dogs, who by making a dead 
point, as if they were about to start a don-mot, will induce 
you to cock your ear and prepare for an explosion of laugh- 
ter ; after which they leave you miserably in the lurch. Of 
this a notable instance was afforded by tne late facetious Jack 
Taylor, who became somewhat forgetful towards the close of 
his career. " Did I ever tell you," he inquired, " of a famous 

good thing I once said to Du B ? He was alluding to my 

former occupation of an oculist, in which he said it was no 
wonder I had failed, since a man must have been blind indeed 
before he would apply to me. — Well, Sir, that was very good ; 
but I blew him completely to atoms by a retort I made. I 
can't recollect just now what it was, but you may depend 
upon it, my dear friend, it was a most capital thing, and made 
a great laugh at the time ! " 

A man must be reduced to great straits before he can think 
of living upon the good things he has forgotten. 

FAME — Literary — Being partially known to-day and uni- 
versally forgotten tO-morrow. To what does this posthumous 
existence amount ? At most it is but a question of one small 
link in the circular chain of eternity. He who writes in a 
modem language, is but the suicide of his own fame, scrib- 
bling on the sand what the next wave of time will obliterate ; 
he gets a short respite, not a pardon from oblivion ! Every 
thing is incessantly passing away, the physical and the moral, 
the corporeal and the intellectual; — the very elements of 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 115 

nature are subject to decay. Not that this would affect 

as an author, for in his writings there is little or nothing of 
nature. In one sense they are eternal — " For he who reads 
them, reads them to no end." Literary fame is more easily 
caught than kept. If you do nothing you are forgotten, and 
if you write and fail, your former success is thrown in your 
teeth. He who has a reputation to maintain has a wild beast 
in his house, which he must constantly feed, or it will feed 
upon him. So indifferent was Fontenelle to fame and repu- 
tation of all sorts, that he is recorded to have said, "If I had 
a paper in my bureau, the disclosure of which would make 
my name infamous and detestable for ever, I would not take 
the trouble to destroy it, provided I could be quite sure that it 
would never appear in my lifetime." This is pushing indiffer- 
ence into a heartless misanthropy. "What can a man have 
cared for others, who cared so little for himself? Shakspeare 
wrote less than three hundred years ago ; and yet his very 
existence has been doubted of late. Before the Eeformation, 
Aristotle's Morals used to be read to the people in some of the 
churches of Germany, instead of the Scriptures ; his philoso- 
phy had an exclusive monopoly granted to it by the parlia- 
ment of Paris, who forbade the use of any other in France ; and 
the President De Thou informs us, that Paul de Foix, one of 
the most learned and elegant men of his time, in passing 
through Ferrara, refused to see the famous Patricius, or to 
meet him at any third house, because he disbelieved in some 
of the doctrines of Aristotle. Yet what an agreeable certainty 
we live in now, as regards the most common particulars con- 
cerning so famous a man ! Some writers say he was a Jew ; 
others, that he got all his information from a Jew, that he 
kept an apothecary's shop, and was an atheist ; others say, 
on the contrary, that he did not keep an apothecary's shop, 
and that he was a Trinitarian. Some say he respected the 
religion of his country ; others that he offered sacrifices to his 
wife, and made hymns in favor of his father-in-law. Some 
are of the opinion he was poisoned by the priests ; others are 
clear that he died of vexation, because he could not discover 
the causes of the ebb and flow in the Euripus. We now care 



115 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

or know so little about Aristotle, that Mr. Fielding, in one of 
Ms novels, says, " Aristotle is not such a fool as many people 
believe, who never read a syllable of his works." 

FASHION— A power as invisible and as despotic as the 
Grand Lama of Thibet. It is said she is a goddess, but no one 
has ever seen her face, though aU aspire to be acquainted 
with her Proteus forms. Her mandates, of which the origin 
is utterly unknown, are nevertheless understood and commu- 
nicated by some inscrutable instinct, and obeyed with a still 
more inexplicable and uninquiring submission. The rich and 
the independent are the most eager to become her abject 
slaves ; and as spaniels are the most fawning when worst 
treated, so do her votaries delight in their idol, in proportion 
as her reign is tyrannical, her fancies capricious, and her 
tastes preposterous. In the service of this fickle and ungrate- 
ful despot, who casts off her most faithful followers, unless 
they will blindly conform to her ever-changing vagaries, the 
timid and delicate willingly encounter pain, the indolent in- 
convenience and labor, the parsimonious expense. Many 
leave the tradesman and the tax-gatherer unpaid, that they 
may voluntarily tax themselves to supply offerings to this 
mysterious goddess, who finds her strongest supporters among 
the weak, her most faithful adherents among the inconstant, 
her warmest admirers among those who admire nothing but 
themselves. One would not object to the prevalent notion 
that whatever is fashionable is right, if our rulers of the mode 
would contrive that whatever is right should be fashionable. 

FAVORITES— Persons undervalued by the many be- 
cause they are overvalued by one. Hatred, however, of 
favorites is only the love of favor. We dislike them, not 
because they are unworthy of their elevation, but because we 
ourselves cannot attain it. Even where their demerits may 
justify our censure, it proceeds from envy rather than an ab- 
stract sense of rectitude. In like manner the justice which 
we refuse to great men when living, and willingly concede 
to them after deatb, does not emanate from our love of their 
virtues, but from our hatred of those who have succeeded to 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 117 

their high offices. We are not less liberal of our praise when 
it can do no good, than of our abuse when it can annoy and 
injure. Tor an exemplification of this double injustice, we 
may refer to some of our critics. In proportion as they low- 
ered an author beneath his fair standard while living, they 
will raise him above it after death, in order to make his sur- 
vivors look little. Their generosity is all posthumous : they 
tear the laurels from your head to hang them on your tomb ; 
they pick your pocket to pay you in post obits ; your winding- 
sheet is the only one with which they find no fault ; they 
accelerate your death, and then do their best to make you live. 

" La faveur?' 1 says La Bruyere, "met Vhomme au dessus 
de ses egaux, et sa chute au dessous." 

Favor places a man above his equals : but his fall from 
favor puts him below them. 

FEAB — A real evil often created by the anticipation of an 
imaginary one. As we can but be frightened when the dan- 
ger arrives, our previous terrors are but so much unnecessary 
addition to the annoyance. They who are most afraid of a 
cold, or the cholera, are the most likely to catch them : so it 
is with many other evils, mental as well as bodily. Like the 
nettle, they only sting the timid ; grasp them firmly and they 
are innocuous. Fly from them and they pursue you ; face 
them and they are gone. " The fear of ill exceeds the ill we 
fear," and there are circumstances in which men have been 
known to rush headlong into danger, in order to get rid of the 
intolerable apprehension of it. This is to be terrified out of 
terror. — Fear is a prodigious magnifier, especially where it 
has been excited by any unusual object. No traveller ever 
saw a small wolf; no landsman ever experienced a gale at 
sea that did not appear to be a tornado : every thing is compar- 
ative. Fear, in short, makes us imitate the silly wheatear, 
who flies into the fowler's snare, in order to avoid the shadow 
of a passing cloud. There are occasions, however, upon 
which no man should fear Fear, for it is the most potent of 
moralists. 

What anchorites — as my punning friend T. H. justly ob- 



118 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

serves — we all became in England, when onr stomachs were 
literally turned by the fear of the cholera. Escnlent vegeta- 
bles were pronounced uneatable — even the tailors forswore 
cabbage : people looked black upon green peas, and eschewed 
with horror the salads they once chewed with pleasure. As 
to fruits, it was fruitless to put them on the table : the dessert 
was deserted; every apple was a forbidden one; currants 
were no longer current ; it was dangerous to pare a pear, and 
still more so to pine for pine. Some forsook their French 
wines, and took to port, as the only safe harbor ; others gave 
up their spirits at the very moment when they most wanted 
to keep them up ; and a few paid more than usual attention 
to their temper, because they had been cautioned against 
every thing liable to turn sour. 

An inveterate dram-drinker being told that the cholera 
with which he was attacked was incurable, and that he would 
speedily be removed to a world of pure spirits, replied, " Well, 
that's a comfort at all events, for it's very difficult to get any 
in this world." 

Kind Providence never sends an evil without a remedy : 
— and arithmetic is the natural cure for the passion of fear. 
If a coward can be made to count his enemies, his terrors may 
be reasoned with, and he may think of ways and means of 
counteraction. 

FEE — Doctor's — Often the purchase-money for that which 
the vendor cannot sell. See Fee Simple. A certain Escula- 
pian, never known to refuse his golden honorarium, not having 
received it one morning from a patient whom he had been 
long attending, affected to be searching about very earnestly 
upon the floor. " "What are you looking for, Doctor ? " in- 
quired the sick man. " For my fee," was the reply ; " not 
finding it in my hand, I suspect I must have dropped it." 
u No, Doctor, no ; you have made a small mistake ; it is I 
who have dropped it ! " 

FLATTERY — See Flummery — The hocus-pocus nonsense 
with which our ears are sometimes cajoled, in order that we 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 119 

may be more effectually bamboozled and deceived. Unbounded 
is the respect and politeness with which the practised adulator 
throws dust in your eyes, when he wants to pick your pocket, 
or to make a fool of you. A man's flattery, to be really good, 
ought not only to be as keen as his sword, but as polished. 
By no means is it so easy a weapon to wield as many people 
imagine : it is like a flail, which if not adroitly used, will box 
your own ears, instead of tickling those of the corn. Let it 
be taken for granted, that while many women will accept a 
complement to their beauty at the expense of their under- 
standing, very few will relish a compliment to their talents if 

it derogate from their personal charms. Lady G , whose 

ten lustres have somewhat dimmed the lustre of her attractions, 
consented in a Parisian party to assist in getting up an extem- 
poraneous Proverbe, and to appear as Calypso. In answer to 
the compliments she received at the conclusion, she declared 
that she had done her best, but added, that to represent Ca- 
lypso properly, one should be young and handsome. "Not 
at all," said an old General, wishing to be very polite, " your 
ladyship is a proof to the contrary ; nothing could look better 
from the further end of the saloon, and nothing could be better 
acted : as to youth and beauty, the distance supplies all that." 
" In that case, General ! I wonder that you do not always keep 
at a distance," was the retort. 

PLC WEES — The terrestrial stars that bring down heaven 
to earth, and carry up our thoughts from earth to heaven : — 
the poetry of the Creator, written in beauty and fragrance. 
" He who does not love flowers," says Ludwig Tieg, a German 
writer, "has lost all fear and love of God." Another Ger- 
man author defines woman as something between a flower 
and an angel. 

EOGIES — That worthy class of men who go about treading 
upon the coat-tails of Young Progress, and crying Whoa! 
whoa ! — men who pin their faith to the " ancients ; " and 
whose constantly repeated watchword is "the wisdom of 
our ancestors" — men whose genius cannot comprehend the 



120 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

present, as their lack of courage does not permit them to lay- 
hold actively and right it. For this reason they find it most 
convenient to glorify our ancestors, and to give currency to 
perhaps the most mischievous and absurd fallacy of modern 
times. For though experience is certainly the mother of wis- 
dom, and the old have, of course, a greater experience than 
the young, the question is, who are the old ? and who are the 
young ? Of individuals living at the same period, the oldest 
has, of course the greatest experience ; but among generations 
of men the reverse of this is true. Those who come first (our 
ancestors) are the young people, and have the least experience. 
"We have added to their experience the experience of many 
centuries, and, therefore, as far as experience goes, are wiser, 
and more capable of forming an opinion than they were. The 
real feeling should be, not can we be so presumptuous as to put 
our opinions in opposition to those of our ancestors ? but can 
such young, ignorant, inexperienced persons as our ancestors 
necessarily were, be expected to have understood a subject as 
well as those who have seen so much more, lived so much longer, 
and enjoyed the experience of so many centuries ? All this 
cant, then, about our ancestors is merely an abuse of words, by 
transferring phrases true of contemporary men to succeeding 
ages. Whereas (as we have before observed) of living men the 
oldest has, cceteris paribus, the most experience ; of generations 
the oldest has, ceteris paribus, the least experience. 

"We cannot of course be supposed to maintain that our 
ancestors wanted wisdom, or that they were necessarily mis- 
taken in their institutions, because their means of information 
were more limited than ours. But we do confidently maintain 
that when we find it expedient to change any thing which our 
ancestors have enacted, we are the experienced persons, and 
not they. 

FOOL— The Dandy reader may please to see Looking 

glass. Folly, nevertheless, has found other defenders than the 
author of the Encomium Morim, for it has been seriously 
maintained by a modern writer, that none but a fool will 
attempt to live without folly, and that the greatest of all follies 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 121 

is to be wiser than others. Let the fool then be comforted ; 
he was never guilty of this absurdity. 

FOOLOMETER— Mr. Fox very often used to say, "I 
wonder what Lord B. will think of this." Lord B. happened 
to be a very stupid person, and the curiosity of Mr. Fox's 
friends was naturally excited to know why he attached such 
importance to the opinion of such an ordinary commonplace 
person. " His opinion," said Mr. Fox, " is of much more im- 
portance than you are aware of. He is an exact representative 
of all commonplace English prejudices, and what Lord B. 
thinks of any measure, the great majority of English people 
will think of it." 

This example Sydney Smith recommends to other British 
ministers ; and it may be safely adopted by governors in all 
civilized nations, our own " Universal" one included. He says : 
" I am astonished that these ministers neglect the common pre- 
caution of a foolometer, with which no public man should be un- 
provided : I mean the acquaintance and society of three or four 
regular British fools as a test of public opinion. Every cabinet 
minister should judge of all his measures by his foolometer, as a 
navigator crowds or shortens sail by the barometer in his cabin. 
I have a very valuable instrument of that kind myself, which I 
have used for many years ; and I would be bound to predict, 
with the utmost nicety, by the help of this machine, the pre- 
cise effect which any measure would produce upon public 
opinion." 

FORGIVENESS — is not always the noblest revenge for an 
injury, since it may proceed from spite, rather than from a 
generous forbearance. "I never used revenge," says Lord Her- 
bert, of Oherbury, — " as leaving it always to God, who, the 
less I punish .mine enemies, will inflict so much the more 
punishment on them." Perhaps his lordship had been reading 
the 25th chapter of Proverbs, where it is said, " If thine enemy 
be hungry, give him bread to eat, and if he be thirsty, give 
him water to drink, for then shalt thou heap coals of fire upon 
his head, and the Lord shall reward thee." This may be ques- 
6 



122 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

tionable morality,- but it is at all events better to do good with 
a bad motive, than evil with a good one ; for a virtuous action 
may benefit many, whereas a wrong feeling can only implicate 
the single individual from whom it emanates. In the former 
case, too, the example may be imitated without the unworthy 
impulse ; as in the latter it may be followed without the 
redeeming incitement. 

FOBTtHSTE — A blind goddess, who sometimes bestows her 
smiles upon fools, in order to reconcile men of sense to her 
frowns ; and often runs from the proud, to revisit the Wretch- 
ed. A man of fortune is one who is so unfortunate as to be 
released from the necessity of employment for the mind and 
exercise for the body, the two great constituents of health and 
happiness ; who has every thing to fear and nothing to hope ; 
and who consequently pays in anxiety and ennui more than 
the value of his money. Fortune is painted blind, in order to 
show her impartiality ; but when she cheers the needy with 
hope, and depresses the wealthy with distrust, methinks she 
confers the richest boon on the poorest man, and injures those 
upon whom she bestows her favors. 

Te colimus, Fortuna, Deam, is, nevertheless, the motto to 
almost every man's conduct, however he may disclaim the 
confession with his lips ; and few have a more ready excuse for 
their homage than the Grecian sage, who being asked why 
philosophers always ran after rich men, while rich men never 
courted philosophers, replied, " Because the latter know that 
they want money, while the former do not know that they 
want wisdom." Who so independent of the blind goddess as 
the ruined gamester, when he exclaimed, after a run of ill luck, 
" O spiteful Fortune ! you may make me lose as much as you 
please, but I defy you to make me pay ! " 

Dryden evinces no great respect for this deity, when he 
exclaims — 

"Fortune a goddess is to fools alone, 
The wise are always masters of their own." 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 123 

FORTUNE-TELLER— A pickpocket, discerning enough to 
limit his or her depredations to gulls and simpletons. The 
girl who told the gypsy hy whom she had been promised a 
large fortune, that she might deduct another sixpence, provided 
she would realize her prediction, and pay over the remainder 
of the money at once, little dreamt that she was translating 
a thought of old Ennius, the Koman poet, who says, speaking 
of fortune-tellers — 

" Quibus divitias pollicentur, ab iis drachmam petunt, 
De divitiis deducant drachmam, reddant csetera." 

It is remarkable that in our aspirations after wealth, we 
never betake ourselves to the wealthy, who might be the most 
likely to communicate the secret of its acquisition ; but rather 
lend ourselves to the delusions of the ragged and the starving, 
whose poverty is the surest proof that they are totally ignorant 
of the magnum arcanum. One must have the ears of Midas to 
listen to those who pretend to possess his touch. 

FRIEKD — Real — One who will tell you of your faults and 
follies in prosperity, and assist you with his hand and heart in 
adversity. — See Phcenix, and Unicorn. 

Strange as it may sound, we are sometimes rather disposed 
to choose our friends from the unworthy than the worthy ; 
for though it is difficult to love those whom we do not esteem, 
it is a greater difficulty to love those whom we esteem much 
more than ourselves. A perfect friendship requires equality, 
even in virtue. He who has merited friends, will seldom be 
without them ; for attachment is not so rare as the desert that 
attracts and secures it. 

Some there are who with an apparent zeal, vindicate their 
friends from all their little peccadilloes, whitewash them as care- 
fully as they can, and then knock them on the head by lamenting 
their addiction to some gross impropriety. This resembles the 
conduct of the Roman priests, who, when an ox was not com- 
pletely white, chalked over the dark spots, and leading him up 
to the altar, made him an immediate sacrifice. 

Favors and especially pecuniary ones, are generally fatal to 
friendship ; for our pride will ever prompt us to lower the value 



124 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

of the gift by diminishing that of the donor. Ingratitude is 
an effort to recover our own esteem, by getting rid of our 
esteem for our benefactor, whom we look upon as a sort of 
tooth-drawer, that has cured us of one pain by inflicting another. 
As friendship must be founded on mutual esteem, it cannot 
long exist among the vicious ; for we soon find ill company to 
be like a dog, which dirts those the most whom he loves the 
best. After Lady E. L. and her female companion had defied 
public opinion for some time, her ladyship was obliged to say — 
" Well now, my dear friend, we must part for ever : for you 
have no character left, and I have not enough for two." 

FRIENDS — There may be the same vitiated taste in the 
choice of friends, as of food. Many who like their game to 
be high and rank, seem to choose their associates for the same 
recommendation ; not objecting to those whose reputations are 
in the worst odor. Others lay the foundation of future quar- 
rels by forming inconsiderate and incongruous attachments — a 
union, as Cowper wittily, but ungrammatically observes — 

"Like Hand-in-Hand insurance plates, 
Which unavoidably creates 
The thoughts of conflagration. " 

A fashionable friend is one who will dine with you, game 
with you, walk or ride out with you, borrow money of you, 
escort your wife to public places — if she be handsome, stand 
by and see you fairly shot, if you happen to be engaged in a 
duel, and slink away and see you fairly clapped into prison, if 
you experience a reverse of fortune. Such a man is like the 
shadow of the sun-dial, which appears in fine weather, and 
vanishes when there comes a rainy day. 

People are always pleased with those who partake pleasure 
with them ; and hence there is a maudlin sympathy among 
brother topers, — but this is fellowship, not friendship. Never 
was the term more thoroughly desecrated than by the heart- 
less Horace Walpole, who, in one of his letters, says, " If one 
of my friends happens to die, I drive down to St. James's 
Coffee House, and bring home a new one." 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 125 

FURNITURE — Inanimate society. I like appropriate 
emblems in furniture, though I would not adopt the pedantry 
of Mr. Hope in its full extent, and make every joint stool, by 
its classical or hieroglyphical mysteries, puzzle the head 
instead of supporting the body. "Where pleasant associations 
can be awakened, — and I would admit none of a contrary ten- 
dency, — why should not our chairs, tables, and sideboards be 
made to enhance the attractions and the resources of home, by 
ministering to a refined taste, and stimulating the imagina- 
tion ? To study how every decoration may express an emblem, 
and even to pun in marble, by sculpturing horses' heads beside 
a bust of Philip, because that word signifies, in Greek, a lover 
of horses, is a pitiful conceit ; but it is pleasant, nevertheless, 
to impart to mahogany some of the properties of mind, to lift 
upholstery out of its materiality, and make it the medium for 
conveying the fancy through the whole range of time and 
space. 

FUTURITY— "What we are to be, determined by what we 
have been. An inscrutable mystery, of which we can only 
guess at a solution, by referring to the past and the present. 
These assure us, by millions of incontestable proofs, that the 
benevolent Creator sympathizes with our happiness ; then he 
must sympathize still more tenderly with our sufferings. To 
suppose that he would scatter all sorts of delights around us in 
this evanescent world, and yet doom the great mass of man- 
kind to everlasting anguish in the next, is an irreconcilable 
contradiction. The earth, upon which we are merely flitting 
passengers, is everywhere enamelled with flowers, equally 
exquisite for varied beauty and perfume, but useless, except for 
the purpose of diffusing pleasure ; and yet our eternal abode 
is to be horrent with fire and agony ! The best way of com- 
bating the terrors with which superstition has darkened futuri- 
ty, is to appeal from the unknown to the known, from the 
unseen to the visible, from imaginary torment to real enjoy- 
ment, from the frightfulness and the stench of Tophet to the 
beauty of a tulip, and the fragrance of a rose. 



126 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

GAMING — See Beggar and Suicide — The gamester begins 
by being a dupe, speedily becomes a knave', and generally ends 
Ms career as a pauper. A dice-box, like that of Pandora, is 
full of all evils, with a deceitful Hope at the bottom, which 
generally turns into Despair. There is but one good throw 
upon the dice, which is, to throw them away. 

GENIUS — A natural aptitude to perform well and easily 
that which others can do but indifferently, and with pains. 
Locke has exploded the theory of innate ideas. The mind of a 
newly -born infant is as a new mirror, which with a capacity 
to reflect all objects, is, in itself, objectless. There is nothing 
innate or original in either case, except the capacity to reflect, 
which will vary according to the peculiar construction of the 
mind or the mirror ; some presenting objects with a true or a 
false, with a beautifying or a discolored and unbecoming hue ; 
while others will enlarge, diminish, distort, or absolutely 
reverse the forms presented to them. These different tenden- 
cies of minds, originally idealess, constitute the diversities of 
human character, or form what is commonly called genius. 

GENTLEMAN" — A character oftener heard of than seen ; 
to draw which is the pet desire of every budding novelist and 
essayist. These mostly fail, however, in their sketches, for the 
sufficient reason that each sits for his own portrait. 

It has been remarked that whatever may be the reputation 
of a man while alive, when dead he is generally allowed to be 
a finished gentleman. 

Among the most successful attempts at embodying in 
words the various qualities which make up our variety of 
gentleman — and a very popular variety, is the following sketch, 
by an eminent American author, now deceased, of an eminent 
compatriot, who " still lives : " " His address is the most genial 
that can be conceived — its honhommie irresistible. He speaks 
in a loud, clear, hearty tone, dogmatically, with his head thrown 
back and his chest out ; never waits for an introduction to 
any lady ; slaps a perfect stranger on the back, and calls him 
" Doctor " or " learned Theban ; " pats every lady on the head, 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 127 

and (if she be pretty and petite) designates her by some such 
title as "My pocket edition of the Lives of the Saints." His 
conversation proper is a sort of Eoman punch, made up of 
tragedy, comedy, and the broadest of all possible farces. He 
has a natural, felicitous flow of talk, always over-swelling the 
boundaries and sweeping every thing before it, right and left. 
He is very earnest, intense, emphatic ; thumps the table with 
his fist ; shocks the nerves of the ladies." 

In reality, whoever is open, loyal, and true ; whoever is of 
humane and affable demeanor ; whoever is honorable in him- 
self, and in his judgment of others, and requires no law but 
his word to make him fulfil an engagement, such a man is a 
zman. 



GHOST — The result of a disordered nervous system, or a 
vivid imagination, assisted by a little credulity, and judiciously 
mixed with a moderate dose of mental anxiety, or, better yet, 
as much remorse as will lie in the point of a dagger. There 
is more meaning and philosophy than at first sight appears in 
Coleridge's answer to Lady Beaumont, when she asked him 
whether he believed in ghosts — " O no, Madam, I have seen 
too many to believe in them." He had sense enough to see 
that his senses had' been deceived. 

GLORY — Military — Sharing with plague, pestilence, and 
famine, the honor of destroying your species ; and partici- 
pating with Alexander's horse the distraction of transmitting 
your name to posterity. 

GLUTTONY— Pope's line— 

"Is there no help then, — Helluo, bring the jowl," 

was suggested by what Athenseus records of Philoxenus, the 
Dithyrambic poet, who, having nearly completed, at one meal, 
an enormous polypus, was seized with convulsive spasms, and 
being told his last hour was at hand, exclaimed — " Since Cha- 
ron and Atropos are come to call me away from my delicacies, 
it is best to leave nothing behind, so bring the remainder of 



128 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

the polypus." According to the same veracious author, Cam- 
bles, being given to gastromargism, ate up Ms wife, and in the 
morning, found her hands in his throat ! Many a poor man 
now-a-days, when he finds the hands of his shrewish wife in his 
throat, would he glad to dispose of the rest of her body after 
the fashion of Cambles. 

GNATS — " To what base uses may we not return ! " ex- 
claims Hamlet, — "Imperial Caesar dead and turned to clay," 
&c. It is a humiliating fact, which cannot be denied ; but, on 
the other hand, there are many forms of matter, which, in 
their decomposition, are as much elevated, as the ingredients 
of Caesar's body were temporarily degraded. Gnats, for in- 
stance, and other annoying insects devoured by birds, are ulti- 
mately converted into music ; their importunate buzzings being 
but an inharmonious prelude, or tuning of instruments for the 
warbling of the nightingale, the cheerful song of the thrush, 
and the full concert of the winged choristers, who turn the 
summer air into melody. Our own daily food, ministering to 
the spirit of which the body is only the shrine, may be sub- 
limised into wit, wisdom, and poetry. In the economy of 
nature, there is a perpetual interchange of life and death, of 
mind and matter. "We draw existence and intellect from the 
earth, we return to it, and contribute, by resolving into our 
first elements, to supply life and intellect to our successors. 

GOETHE — said that he considered no work complete, unless 
it involved some mystery which the author left unexplained, 
for the express purpose of stimulating the curiosity and the 
faculties of the reader. In this confession we have a key to 
his Faust, to much of the Kantian philosophy, and to a portion 
of the German literature in general. The mystical — the obscure 
— the enigmatical, where there is no real riddle to be solved, as 
in the case of Faust, Coleridge's Christabel, and similar produc- 
tions, are so much sheer impertinence, and one feels a contemp- 
tuous pity for those laborious (Edipi who puzzle their brains 
in endeavoring to solve the imaginary enigma of a sham 
Sphynx. German writers and readers seem to find a delight 
in thus stultifying each other. 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 129 

GOOD— in things evil. 

"There is a soul of goodness in things evil, 
"Would men observingly distil it out I " 

" So with equal wisdom and good-nature, does Shakspeare 
make one of his characters exclaim — Suffering gives strength 
to sympathy. Hate of the particular may have a foundation 
in love for the general. The lowest and most wilful vice may 
plunge deeper out of a regret of virtue. Even in envy may be 
discerned something of an instinct of justice, something of a 
wish to see universal fair-play, and things on a level." Leigh 
Hunt, from one of whose delightful papers in the Indicator this 
passage is extracted, might easily have expanded his idea, and 
illustrated it by further examples ; for while body and soul 
retain their alliance, their joint offspring will ever bear a like- 
ness to either parent. " The web of our life is of a mingled 
yarn, good and ill together ; our virtues would be proud if our 
faults whipped them not ; and our crimes would despair if 
they were not cherished by our virtues." To begin with the 
latter ; — what we call patriotism, is often a blind and mis- 
chievous prejudice against other nations, rather than an en- 
lightened preference of our own. Love is as often sensual as 
sentimental. Parental affection, where it is not instinctive, is 
only reflected self-love. Charity not seldom proceeds from 
pride, from our desire to get rid of an uneasy sensation, or 
from the hope of being repaid with usurious interest what we 
" lend to the Lord." Dispensing justice may spring from the 
thirst of domination over our fellow creatures ; and religion 
itself, even when sincere, may be instigated by that selfish 
regard to future reward, which has been termed — other- 
worldliness. 

As our virtues are tainted occasionally by degrading asso- 
ciations, so may our vices be mingled with redeeming ones. 
Conjugal jealousy and the hatred of a rival, spring from the 
intensity of our love. Eevenge, which, like envy, is an instinct 
of justice, does but take into its own hands the execution of 
that natural law which preceded the social. Avarice is only 
prudence and economy pushed to excess ; intemperance has its 
6* 



130' 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 



source in fellowship and hospitality ; and wasteful extravagance 
springs from an unregulated generosity. These considera- 
tions are not urged to encourage moral Pyrrhonism and doubt ; 
still less to confound the barriers of right and wrong ; but to 
inculcate humility as well as forbearance, to teach us that 
we should neither be too overweening in estimating our own 
virtues, nor too severe in condemning the failings of others. 

GOODKESS— A synonyme for Deity. "When all the 
good of a system," says G. L. Le Sage, of Geneva, " can easily 
be traced to general principles, and when all the evils appear 
to be exceptions, closely connected with some good, the excess 
being evidently, though, perhaps, but in a small degree, on the 
side of good, the contriver must be regarded as beneficent." 
If the existence of pain and evil render it difficult for a reflect- 
ing man to be an optimist, there is no reason why he should 
not, at all events, be an agathist. It is an observation of Dr. 
Johnson, that as the greatest liar tells more truth than false- 
hood, so may it be said of the worst man, that he does more 
good than evil. 

" When a common soldier," observes Adam Smith, " is 
ordered upon a forlorn hope, his courage, and his sense of duty, 
will make him march to his doom with alacrity ; but how few 
are philosophers enough to imitate this brave devotion, when 
they are ordered out upon the forlorn hope of the universe." 
The moral courage that will face obloquy in a good cause, is a 
much rarer gift than the bodily valor that will confront death 
in a bad one. 

With a double vigilance should we watch our actions, when 
we reflect, that good and bad ones are never childless ; and 
that, in both cases, the offspring goes beyond the parent, — 
every good begetting a better, every bad a worse. 

GOOSE — A bird, and word of reproach, but I know not 
why. M. de Cottu, the French jurist, who came to England 
to digest laws and dinners, and who pronounced the cuisine to 
be fade et bornee, records, with an affectation of delicate disgust, 
that even at decent tables he had often seen a goose ! — Gadso ! 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 131 

I can easily believe it, if he sat opposite the mirror. Why this 
calumniated fowl should be a byeword for ridicule in our dis- 
course, or an object of abomination at polite tables, is an 
enigma, which it might puzzle (Edipus to solve. Every one 
knows that the Eoman State was saved by the cackling of 
geese ; a hint which has by no means been thrown away upon 
some of our own short- witted and long-winded Congressmen. 
Among the Eomans, the gander and his spouse were a favorite 
and a fashionable dish ; but learned commentators maintain, 
that the particular brood to which the commonwealth was so 
much indebted was preserved, as well as all its immediate de- 
scendants, with the utmost care ; a circumstance which must 
have been much deplored by the epicures of that day, since it 
became impossible to have a Capitol goose for dinner. Then, 
as now, the little giblets were thought great delicacies, and 
good livers deemed the livers good, as appears by the following 
extract from Francis's Horace, b. ii. sat. 8 : — 

"And a white gander's liver, 
Stuff 'd fat with figs, bespoke the curious giver." 

Whence, also, we may see that their epicurism extended even 
to the color. A modern white gander is a rara avis. Queen 
Elizabeth was cutting up a goose, when she learnt that the 
Spanish armada had been cut up by a Drake. Why, then, 
should a bird, ennobled by so many historical, and endeared by 
so many culinary recommendations, be treated with scorn and 
contumely? If the reader sympathize with the writer in 
wishing to see some zealous, though tardy reparation, made by 
a featherless biped to the biped who supplies us with feathers, 
he will peruse with a kindred complacency and indulgence the 
following 

ODE TO A GOOSE. 

Written after dinner on the Feast of St. Michael. 

STROPHE I. 

O bikd most rare ! although thou- art 
Uncommon common on a common, 
What man or woman 
Can in one single term impart 



132 THE TIN TEUMPET. 

A proper name for thee ?— An ancient Eoman 
■Would answer — " Anser." Sure I am, that no man 
Knowing thy various attributes, would choose 
To call thee Goose I 

ANTISTBOPHE I. 

No, Goose ! thou art no Goose. Well stuff 'd with sago 
And titillating things, both dead and living, 
For ever art thou giving 
Solace to man in life's brief pilgrimage. 



Jove's eagle wielding the avenging thunder, 
Is but a folio hawk, a bird of plunder. 

Minerva's owl, 

(Both are foul fowl !) 
Shunning the light, should ne'er have been preferr'd 
To rank as Wisdom's bird — 
As for the young and stately swan, 
A Scottish lawyer is the man 

To sing its praises. 
/am no writer to the cygnet — so, 

Avoiding further periphrases, 
For thee alone, Goose 1 my verse shall flow. 

STROPHE II. 

O bird of Morpheus ! half our lives are sped, 
(Ay, and the happiest too) upon a bed 
Stuff 'd with thy feathers. On thy breast 
Thou hushest us to rest, 
As if we were thy goslings, 
Till we forget life's hubble-bubble, 
Its toil and trouble, 
Its crossings and its jostlings. 
And borne in dreams to empyrean latitudes, 
Eevel in ecstacies and bright beatitudes. 

ANTISTBOPHE II. 

Churls that we are ! what snoozing hum 

Ascends to thee ?— what pseans, what adorings ? 
Our mouths, perchance, are open, but they're dumb : 

Our soul harangues 

Are nasal twangs, 
And all our gratitude consists of snorings. 

EPODE II. 

Bird of Apollo ! worthy to pluck grass 

On the Parnassian mountain, 

Beside the classic fountain 
Of Hippocrene, what Muse with thee can class, 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 133 

To whose inspiring wing we owe 

All that the poets past have writ ; 
From whose ungather'd wings shall flow 
All our whole store of future wit? 

Well may'st thou strut, 

Proud of thy pens uncut, 

"Which shall cut jokes, 

In after times, for unborn folks ; — 
"Well may'st thou plume thyself upon thy plumage— all 

Is erudite and intellectual, 

Each wing a cyclopaedia, fraught 

"With genius multiform, a word of thought ! 

Ah ! when thou putt'st thy head 

Beneath that wing to bed, 
In future libraries thou tak'st a nap, 
And dream'st of Paternoster Eow, mayhap ! 
"What are they dreaming of, that they forget 

(The publishing and scribbling set) 

To apotheosise thee, Goose ! 
As the tenth Muse ? 

ANTISTBOPHE III. 

And then the darliDg driblets, 

That constitute thy giblets, 

"Whether in soup or stew'd, 
1 what delectable and dainty food I 
Full of my subject, ('twas my dinner dish,) 

No wonder that I feel all over goosy, 

Fired with what Braham calls entusimusy, 
So much so, I could almost wish, 

If fate were nothing loath, 

To be a Goose instead of man. 
"Be doubly happy on thy present plan," 

(Methinks the reader cries,) 

"And thank the favoring destinies, 

For now thou'rt both I " 

The celebrated Colonel McCluny saw through this vulgar 
prejudice against the goose. " I was once sitting at a dinner- 
table opposite him ; between us was an antediluvian duck, 
which I was making desperate efforts to disintegrate. I ob- 
served the Colonel regarding me with a steady smile, and re- 
marked, ' Colonel, you appear to be amused at my awkwardness.' 
1 No, sir,' replied he, ' I was thinking why the term duck was 
used as a word of endearment, and goose one of reproach.' " 

GOUT — Sometimes the father's sin visited upon the child, 
but more often the child of our own sins visiting its father. 



134 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

A man of the latter stamp once asked Abernethy what he 
should do to avoid the infliction. — " Live upon a shilling a 
day — and earn it," was the reply, at once pertinent and im- 
pertinent. 

GRADGRIKD — Sydney Smith, the most practical of men, 
had a great contempt for the Gradgrind genus. " That school," 
said he, " treat mankind as if they were mere machines ; the 
feelings or affections never enter into their calculations. If 
every thing is to be sacrificed to utility, why do you bury your 
grandmother at all ? why don't you cut her into small pieces 
at once, and make portable soup of her ? " 

GRATITUDE— If this be justly defined as " a lively sense 
of benefits to come," ingratitude is so far preferable, that it is 
free from hypocrisy and sordid motives, and releases the bene- 
factor as well as the benefited. If the one be a calculating 
virtue, the other is at least a frank vice. Great ingratitude 
cannot be common, because great beneficence is rare, and its 
alleged frequency, therefore, is often a pretext trumped up by 
the parsimonious to save their pockets. To be deterred by such 
a plea from practising charity, when we have the means, is to 
commit towards heaven the very offence which we are imputing 
to our fellow-creatures. Besides, one man's ingratitude is not 
another man's ingratitude. Beneficent people are rarely grate- 
ful ; they look upon common favors like common politeness, as 
a matter of course. An apparent gratitude may sometimes be 
the sharpest revenge. Sir Charles Sedley, when he joined: the 
Prince of Orange, said of King James the Second — " He has 
made my daughter a Countess, and I will show my gratitude 
by endeavoring to make his a Queen." It will be recollected, 
that Sedley's daughter, created Countess of Dorchester, was 
James's mistress, and that the Prince of Orange's wife, after- 
wards Queen Mary, was James's daughter. 

GRAVE — The gate through which we pass from the visible 
to the invisible world. 

" GRAVITY "—says Rochefoucauld, " is a mystery of the 
body, invented to conceal the defects of the understanding." 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 135 

GEIEFS — ^are like the beings that endure them, — the little 
ones are the most clamorous and noisy ; those of older growth, 
and greater magnitude, are generally tranquil, and sometimes 
silent. Our minds are like ill-hung vehicles ; when they have 
little to carry, they raise a prodigious clatter, — when heavily 
laden, they neither creak nor rumble. 

GrEUMBLEES — who are perpetually publishing the mal- 
treatment they have experienced, excite but little sympathy ; 
for, without going the length of Eochefoucauld's maxim, it may 
safely be maintained, that there is nothing which people in 
general bear with more equanimity than the misfortunes of 
their neighbors. It is natural that those who feel themselves 
aggrieved, should give vent to complaint ; but it is equally so, 
that their hearers should at length listen to the catalogue of 
their wrongs with indifference. 

" If you are treated ill and put on, 

'Tis natural to make a fuss ; 
To see it and not care a button, 

Is just as natural for us. 
Like people viewing, at a distance, 

Two persons thrown out of a casement, 
All we can do for your assistance, 

Is to afford you our amazement : — 
For an impartial looker-on 

In suck disasters never chooses ; 
'Tis neither Tom, nor Will, nor John, — 

'Tis the phenomenon amuses." 

Not to enjoy all the innocent happiness we can, is so far 
impious, that it is defrauding the Creator of that purpose in 
our creation, which we may consider to be the most congenial 
to the divine nature. 

HABIT — A second nature, which often supersedes the first. 
The habit which enables one man to dispense with necessaries, 
may render superfluities indispensable to another. Extremes 
touch ; he who wants no favors from fortune, may be said to 
have obtained the very greatest that she can bestow, in realiz- 
ing an independence which no changes or reverses can dimin- 
ish. What king or conqueror can say as much ? 



136 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

The late Sir "W r S g, as lie hurried along the streets 

of London, had contracted a habit, whenever he met any of his 
nnmerons acquaintance, of saluting them with a passing bow, 
a touch of the hat, and the words — " Sir, I wish you a very 
good morning." As High Sheriff of a county, it once became 
his duty to attend the execution of a criminal, when, having 
seen that all the preliminary arrangements were complete, and 
that his services were no longer needed, he bowed, and touched 
his hat to the culprit, whose cap was already over his face, 
and took leave of him with his habitual — " Sir, I wish you a 
very good morning ! " 

A friend of the author's, who had purchased a 'post-obit^ 
dependent on the life of an elderly female, being asked, some 
years afterwards, whether he had yet come into possession, 
replied — " Oh no ! — and I have quite given it up ; for the old 
cat has now acquired such a habit of living, that I do not sup- 
pose she could die if she would." It must be confessed, that 
this obstinate habit is the very last that we resign. 

HAPPINESS — A blessing often missed by those who run 
after pleasure, and generally found by those who suffer pleasure 
to run after them. Like a Will o'-the-wisp, it is sometimes 
farthest off when we imagine we can grasp it, and nearest to 
us when it appears to be at a distance. The most effec- 
tual way to secure it to ourselves, is to confer it upon others. 

None are either so miserable or so happy as they are 
thought, for the mind soon habituates itself to its moral atmos- 
phere, whether rough or gentle. If there be no difference 
between possessing a thing, and not wishing for it, happiness 
may be best attained by indifference ; at all events there is a 
greater approximation than is generally supposed, between 
those who have lost, and those who retain their happiness ; 
since the former are always hoping to recover, what the latter 
are always fearing to be deprived of. 

Pyrrhus, denying the reality of any beatitude, maintained 
that life and death were equal, and when asked why he did 
not seek the grave, since existence was so little attractive, 
replied, " Because both are indifferent to me." 



THE TIN TKTJMPET. 137 

In the progress of time and general improvement, the aggre- 
gate of human enjoyment may be incalculably increased, with- 
out diminishing the stock of comparative discontent ; for as 
we measure our portion in life not by our superiority to our 
predecessors, but by our inferiority to our contemporaries, 
we forget abstract benefits in relative disadvantages. Notwith- 
standing this drawback, human happiness must be constantly 
augmenting. As civilization advances, every peasant enjoys 
luxuries and securities from which nobles and monarchs were 
fomerly debarred. That there is much less misery and suffering 
in the world than formerly, is incontestably proved by the 
remarkable increase in the mean duration of life, while the 
years thus added to our span, derive a double value from the 
almost universal diffusion of the means of enjoying them. 

As important disappointments do but rarely occur, and yet 
many men are unhappy during the greater part of their lives, 
it is evident that they must fret their spirit about trifles. The 
great secret of cheerfulness and content is not to be annoyed 
by petty thwartings, and not to aspire to unattainable objects. 
Children are always happy, because they are always pursuing 
trifles of easy acquisition. 

Exaggerating the misery of mankind is a species of impiety, 
because it is an oblique reflection on the benevolence of the 
Deity. If man had been made involuntarily happy, he would 
have been without motives to exertion, and would have lost 
that noblest species of felicity which arises from the virtuous 
and successful development of his faculties. If virtue, more- 
over, always insured happiness, while vice entailed inevitable 
misery, we should lose one of the strongest arguments for a 
future state of retribution. 

There are two things which will make us happy in this life, 
if we attend to them. The first is, never to vex ourselves 
about what we can't help, and the second, never to vex our- 
selves about what we can help. 

HAKDSHIPS — Pleasures when they are self-imposed, 
intolerable grievances when they are required by our duty. 
"What sportsman ever complains of fatigue, what card-player 



138 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

of sedentariness, what angler of solitude and dnlness, what 
bookworm of confinement, what miser of poverty, what lover 
of slavery ? — Ay, but these annoyances may be endured with 
patience, because they are voluntary. Well, and what pre- 
vents us from performing with an equal good will the tasks 
enjoined, by our station in life, and which all our ill-will can- 
not enable us to avoid ? We conquer our fate when we sub- 
mit to it cheerfully. Vain repinings only serve to aggra- 
vate it. . . 

So prone, however, are we to discontent and complaint, 
that even when men bear their real hardships with tolerable 
composure, they are apt to invent imaginary ones, to which 
they cannot submit with any degree of patience. 

HARMONY — Musical — A sensual pleasure, which, in 
well-regulated minds, seldom fails to produce moral results. 

Hark I to the voice of yonder sour 

And gloomy monitor, who cries — 
" Why do yon waste life's fleeting hour 

In idle songs and melodies ? 
The tongue that sings — the hands that play, 

Shall soon be mute and cold in death, 
And ye who listen to the lay 

As soon shall yield your parting breath." 

But hark ! I hear an angel's voice — 

" Mortals ! " exclaims the dulcet chant, 
"Sing ! and with instruments rejoice, 

For music is a heavenly grant. 
'Twas meant to charm your cares away, 

The thoughts to raise— the heart to mend, 
And hallow'd thus, in slightest lay 
« Attains a high and moral end." 

He who has a spirit of harmony in his nature will exhibit it 
in every other direction, as well as in that of music. There 
will be a pleasing concord and consentaneousness in all his 
thoughts, words, and actions. As the sound of music enables 
him to walk in a sustained and regular step over uneven 
ground, so will the moral harmony of his nature, responding 
to the unheard music of the spheres, or in other words, to the 
voice of God, speaking by his revelations, empower him to 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 139 

pursue the right way with a steady and orderly step, amid all 
the quicksands and inequalities of his life's pilgrimage. 

HEAD — A bulbous excrescence, of special use to many as 
a peg for hanging a hat on — as a barber's block for supporting 
wigs — as a target for shooting at when rendered conspicuous 
by a shining helmet — as a snuff-box or a chatter-box — as a 
machine for fitting into a halter or guillotine — as a receptacle 
for freaks, fancies, follies, passions, prejudices, predilections — ■ 
for any thing, in short, but brains. 

Human heads are like hogsheads — the less they contain, the 
louder the report they give of themselves. The smaller the 
calibre of the mind, the greater the bore of a perpetually open 
mouth. 

HEALTH — See Temperance, Exercise, and Virtue as often 
as you can, and the doctor as seldom as you can. The mind's 
health is the best security for that of the body — Qui medicd 
vivit misere vivit. 

As to taking care of your precious health, Hood says : 
don't cure or smoke dry it, or pickle it in everlasting acids, 
like the Germans; don't bury it in a potato pit, like the 
Irish ; don't preserve it in spirits, like the Barbadians ; don't 
salt it down, like the Newfoundlanders ; don't bottle it, like 
gooseberries ; don't pot it, and donH hang it. A rope is a bad 
Cordon Sanitaire. Above all, don't despond about it. Con- 
sider your health as your best friend, and think as well of it, 
in spite of all its foibles, as you can. Never fancy, every time 
you cough, you are going to coughy pot. Hold up, as the 
shooter says, over the heaviest ground. Despondency, in a 
nice case, is the overweight that may make you kick the 
beam and the bucket at once. And bear in mind that, " a 
single ourst with mirth is worth a whole season of full cries 
with melancholy." 

HEAET — According to a French author, those men pass 
the most comfortably through the world, who have a good 
digestion and a hard heart ; the former preserving them from 



140 THE TIN TEUMPET. 

all the annoyances of dyspepsia, and the latter from those 
painful feelings to which the compassionate and the sympa- 
thizing are perpetually subject. Such a man, indeed, may 
have fewer pains, bnt can he enjoy any pleasure, except the 
vulgar ones of sense ? He that possesses a susceptible heart, has 
an inexhaustible mine of sweet emotions. Let him cherish its 
tenderness, and guard, above all things, against those outpour- 
ings of envy or uncharitableness, which inevitably harden the 
heart, as the foam exuded by testaceous animals encrusts into 
shell. 

HETERODOXY— is another man's doxy— whereas Ortho- 
doxy is a man's own doxy. The definition is an old one, but 
it might be difficult to give a new one which should be more 
accurate. Sales defines heresy and schism as religious scare- 
crows : — they might be efficient ones formerly, but now-a-days 
they will scare few birds except gulls and dotterels. 

HINT — A jog on the mental elbow. — Lord M., a Scottish 
judge, well known for his penurious habits, being compelled 
to give a dinner to the barristers upon circuit, and having 
neglected to order any claret, with which they had been ac- 
customed to be regaled on such occasions, Harry Erskine 
endeavored by several oblique hints to make him sensible of 
the omission. His lordship, however, who had an acute mis- 
apprehension where his pocket was in danger, affected to 
receive all these innuendoes in a different sense, and at length, 
seeking to turn the conversation to the war in which we were 
then engaged, abruptly exclaimed, "I wonder what has be- 
come of the French fleet ? " — " Just at present, my lord," 
replied his waggish persecutor, "I believe it is, like ourselves, 
confined to port ! " 

A sportsman, who during the shooting season had gone to 
pass a week with his friend in the country, on the strength of 
a general invitation, soon found, by a gentle hint, that he 
would have done better to wait for a special one. " I saw 
some beautiful scenery," was the visitor's first remark, — " as I 
came to-day by the upper road." " You will see some still 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 141 

finer," was the reply, " as you go back to-morrow by the 
lower one." 

HISTORY — The Newgate calendar of kings and rulers, 
which finds no materials in the happiness or virtue of states, 
and is therefore little better than a record of human crime and 
misery. It may be doubted whether we should tempt chil- 
dren to become misanthropes, by perusing it too early. At a 
more mature age they may beneficially distinguish the momen- 
tary triumph of crime, from the eternal lot of virtue. To form 
an opinion of human nature from a perusal of history, is like 
judging of a fine city by its sewers and cess-pools. 

HOLIDAYS — The Elysium of our boyhood ; perhaps the 
only one of our life. Of this truth Anaxagoras seems to have 
been aware. Being asked by the people of Lampsacus, before 
his death, whether he wished to have any thing done in com- 
memoration of him, — "Yes," he replied; "let the boys be 
allowed to play on the anniversary of my death." " Men are 
but children of a larger growth," and, in this working-day 
country, where we have neither half holidays enough, nor 
even enough half-holidays, it might be well if some patriot 
would bequeath to the whole laboring community a legacy 
similar to that of Anaxagoras. 

HONESTY — It is pleasant to loll and roll, and to accumu- 
late — to be a purple and fine linen man, and to be called by 
some of those nicknames which frail and ephemeral beings are 
so fond of accumulating upon each other ; — but the best thing 
of all is to live like honest men, and to add something to the 
cause of liberality, justice, and truth. 

HOPE — though sometimes little better than the deferring 
of disappointment, is, nevertheless, a compensation for many of 
life's painful realities. Its fruition terminates its enjoyment ; 
but why should we complain that expectation renders us more 
happy than possession, since the former is a long-enduring 
pleasure, and the latter only a brief regret ? A presentiment 



142 THE TIN TETTMPET. 

of coming gladness is the summit of terrestrial felicity. Hope, 
however, is a better dependence, at» the outset, than at the 
close of our career. To use the language of Lord Bacon, it is 
a good breakfast but an idle supper. 

All wings — like a cherub, Hope builds upon nothing, floats, 
self-supported, like the clouds, catching every flitting ray of 
the sun, and can raise itself to heaven, even by clinging to a film 
or gossamer. If there be any truth in the poet's averment, 
that 

" Hope springs eternal in the human breast," 

who shall say that man is unhappy ? 

HOESE — An article in the sale of which you may cheat 
your own father without any imputation upon your honesty, 
or your sense of filial duty. Dr. Burnet, having good reason 
for disposing of his nag, got upon its back, and rode it up and 
down, without succeeding, however, in concealing its defects. 
' ; My good doctor," said the expected purchaser, "when you 
want to take me in, you should mount a pulpit, not a horse." 

HOUE-GLASS — Every thing, we are told, has its hour, 
and an hour-glass offers no exception to the rule ; its period 
of utility is but a short one. The sands gradually wear and 
file away the aperture through which they pass, at the same 
time that they themselves are constantly diminishing their 
particles by friction and collision, so that they flow faster and 
faster through the enlarged opening, and the machine, turn it 
which way you will, becomes deranged and useless. So it is 
with the state machine ; by struggling against the restraints 
of the monarchical or oligarchical principle, the people do but 
too often enlarge and extend its capacity, while they weaken 
and wear out themselves, until the proper and useful balance 
between the two is entirely destroyed. All governments, 
therefore, however well poised at first, have as constant a ten- 
dency towards derangement as the hour-glass. The balance 
may be restored in either case, by diminishing the power that 
has been enlarged, and extending that which has been lessened 
in the wear and tear of years — this is Eeform. Or you may 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 143 

wait till the machine is obliged to be turned topsy-turvy and 
thrown into total disorder, or dashed to pieces — this is Bevo- 
lution. 

HOUSEKEEPING — Beguxar. When Sheridan, by the as- 
sistance of his friends, was installed in a house in Saville Eow, 
he boasted to one of his relations how comfortably and regu- 
larly he was living, so much so, that every thing went on like 
clock-work. — " That I can easily believe," was the reply, " it 
goes on by tick ! tick ! tick !" 

HUMANITY — is much more shown in our conduct to- 
wards animals, where we are irresponsible, except to heaven, 
than towards our fellow-creatures, where we are restrained by 
the laws, by public opinion, and by fear of retaliation. The 
more defenceless and humble the creature, the greater is the 
merit of treating it kindly, since our tenderness must spring 
from a high principle or a feeling heart. Show me the man 
that is a lover of animals, and I will answer for his philan- 
thropy. 

How refined and considerate was the humanity of the mas- 
ter butcher, who, in defending his drover for inflicting a tre- 
mendous blow upon the eye of an ox, exclaimed, " What harm 
could he do by striking the beast over the head, where it does 
not injure the meat ? " 

HUMAN" NATURE — " crops out " in various directions, 
and sometimes in most unexpected ways. 

Southey used to say that " the moment any thing assumed 
the shape Of a duty, Coleridge felt himself incapable of dis- 
charging it." 

Then there was Lady Cork, of whom Sydney Smith told 
that she was so deeply moved at a charity sermon that she 
borrowed a guinea of a neighbor to put into the plate. She 
had a constitutional proclivity to appropriate trifles in the 
houses of her friends. " Don't leave those things about so, 
my dear," she used to say, " or I shall steal them." 



144 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

HUMILITY — The best evidence of real religion, as arro- 
gance, self-conceit, and pretension, are the infallible criteria of 
a Pharisaical devotion. 

As the best laden branches bend 

To earth with an augmented press, 
So do the fruits of virtue tend 

To bow our hearts in humbleness ; 
While the vain Pharisee, inflate 
With all the puff 'd and windy state, 

That owes to emptiness its birth, 
Like a balloon, a void inside, 
Without — all varnish, pomp, and pride, 
Only seeks Heaven to be descried, 

Admired and gazed at from the earth, — 
What though the sound and sane Divine 

Neglected lives, forgotten dies, 
While sects and devotees combine 

To puff some bigot to the skies ; 
A diamond's still a precious stone 

Although upon a dunghill cast, 
And worthless dust, though upwards blown, 

Eetains its vileness to the last. 

That false humility, which only stoops to conquer, and 
prostrates itself that it may rise with the more certainty, may 
be compared to bottled beer, which is laid flat in order that it 
may get up. As the soil which is richest in precious ores, 
generally presents the most barren surface, so genuine humil- 
ity, proud of nothing but the consciousness of virtue, " Dis- 
dains to wear the prize she loves to win." 

HUNGER — That which gives the poor man his health 
and his appetite, and the want of which often afflicts the rich 
with satiety and disease. 

HYPOCHONDRIA— The imaginary malady with which 
those are taxed who have no real one. 

HYPOCRISY — may assume the mask of vice as well as of 
virtue. Such is the vanity of some men, that they would 
rather be notorious, and even infamous, than unnoticed. Lord 
Byron sometimes pretended to be more profligate than he 
really was, in order, as he affirmed, that he might ingratiate 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 145 

himself with the women! Satirizing the sex is, generally, 
spitting against the wind, which blows back in our own face 
what we vainly spirt forth against it. It has been said of 
hypocrites, that they go to the Devil's abode by the road of 
Paradise ; but this, at all events, evinces a better taste than 
to journey towards the same destination by the most revolting 
road that can be selected. If it gives us a more favorable 
opinion of the Devil, to believe that he is not so black as he is 
painted by others, it should deepen our contempt for certain 
pseudo-human devils, when we learn that they are not so 
black as they paint themselves. 

There is much hypocrisy in affecting to give up the pleas- 
ures of the world, from religious motives, when we only with- 
draw from it because we find a greater gratification in the 
pleasures of retirement. 

" My dear children," said an old rat to his young ones, 
" the infirmities of age are pressing so heavily upon me, that 
I have determined to dedicate the short remainder of my days 
to mortification and penance, in a narrow and lonely hole 
which I have lately discovered : but let me not interfere with 
your enjoyments ; youth is the season for pleasure ; be happy, 
therefore, and only obey my last injunction — never to come 
near me in my retreat. God bless you all ! " Deeply affected, 
snivelling audibly, and wiping his paternal eyes with his tail, 
the old rat withdrew, and was seen no more for several days, 
when his youngest daughter, moved rather by filial affection, 
than by that curiosity which has been attributed to the sex, 
stole to his cell of mortification, which turned out to be a hole, 
made by his own teeth, in — an enormous Cheshire cheese ! 

IDLENESS — Hard work for those who are not used to it, 
and dull work for those who are. Idleness is a moral leprosy, 
which soon eats its way into our heart and corrodes our hap- 
piness, while it undermines our health. Nothing is so hard to 
do, as to do nothing. The hypochondriacal Countess, who 
" envies every cinder-wench she sees, 1 ' is much more to be 
pitied than the toiling drudge, who " sighs for luxury and 
ease." 

7 



146 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

Idleness is costly without being a luxury. Montaigne 
always wound up the year's account of his expenses with the 
following entry : " Item — for my abominable habit of idleness 
— a thousand livres." 

Idlers may deserve our compassion, but few things are 
more misplaced than the contempt lavished upon them as use- 
less members of society ; sometimes such scorn is only masked 
envy ; where it is real, it is wrong, All rich idlers may be 
termed the representatives of former industry and talent ; they 
must either have achieved independence by their own exer- 
tions or by those of their ancestors, for almost all wealth can 
be traced back to labor, or genius, or merit of some sort. 
And why do the revilers of the idle, labor and toil with such 
perseverance ? — that they may imitate those whom they 
abuse, by acquiring an independence and becoming themselves 
idle. The sight of luxurious ease is the best stimulus to exer- 
tion. To suppose that the pleasure of overtaking is greater 
than that of pursuing the game, may be a mistake, but it is a 
beneficial one, and keeps society from stagnating. Eich idlers 
are the advancers of civilization, the best encouragers of in- 
dustry — the surest patrons of literature and the arts. Nor is 
there any thing invidious in their good fortune, for every one 
may aspire to rival or surpass it, which is not the case with he- 
reditary distinctions. 

We toil for leisure only to discover, when we have suc- 
ceeded in our object, that leisure is a great toil. How quickly 
would the working-classes be reconciled to what they term 
the curse of compulsory occupation, if they were doomed, only 
for a short time, to the greater curse of compulsory idleness ! 
Quickly would they find, that it is much better to wear out 
than to rust out. 

IDOL — What many worship in their own shape, who 
would be ashamed to do so in any other. 

IMAGINATION — Deeams of — An atonemnet for the mis- 
eries of reality. Philosophers in all ages have delighted in 
appealing from this incorrigible world to a creation of their 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 147 

own, where all the evils to which mankind are subjected, 
should be rectified or mitigated. It was with this feeling that 
Plato, after the death of Socrates, wrote his Atlantis. Tacitus, 
shocked at the profligacy and subjection of his countrymen, 
endeavored to shame them by holding up to their imitation 
the wisdom, virtue, and liberty of the German forests. Sir 
Thomas More transported himself from the tyranny of Henry 
VIII. into Utopia. Harrington established the republican 
government, for which he panted, in his Oceana ; and Mon- 
tesquieu developed his own benevolent views in his fabulous 
history of the Troglodytes. 

IMPBESSIONS — First — are sometimes involuntarily be- 
trayed. Much of the spectator's mind may be gathered by 
his almost unconscious exclamation when he encounters any 
novel and striking sight, or is thrown into strange and unex- 
pected situations, which have as sure an effect as wine, in 
eliciting the truth. Eunning against a surprise, is like running 
against a post, — it forces the breath out of your mouth, before 
you have time to consider how you shall modulate it. Pope, 
the actor, who was a great epicure, ejaculated in a transport, 
on his first catching the prospect from Eichmond Hill — " A 
perfect hauch by heaven !" One of the French Savans, after 
risking his life in penetrating into the square chamber of the 
great Egyptian pyramid, had no sooner ascertained its dimen- 
sions, by holding up his torch, than he cried to his compan- 
ion. — "Quel emplacement pour un Billard ! " — " "What a place 
for a billiard table." 

IMMOET ALITY — of modern authors — Drawing in imagi- 
nation upon the future, for that homage which the present 
refuses to pay : — at best a protracted oblivion. A poet, how- 
ever illustrious in his day, is like the statue set up by Nebu- 
chadnezzar, the feet of which were of clay. A living language 
is a painting, perpetually changing color, and then perishing ; 
a dead one is as a marble statue— always the same. Even this 
distant reversion of fame is denied to a modern, for there is 
little chance that the English tongue of the nineteenth century 



148 THE TLN" TRUMPET. 

should live as a dead language after it is dead as a living one. 
Some vainglorious author boasted that his poems would he 
read when those of Pope and Dryden were forgotten. * " But 
not till then," added a bystander. 

INDIGESTION— INDUSTKY— Two things which were 
never before found united. 

INCONSISTENCY— the only thing in which men are 
consistent. "We are certainly compounded of two contrary 
natures, impelling us, under different circumstances and in- 
fluences, to actions apparently irreconcilable. To this must it 
be attributed that the gravest and most saturine, will some- 
times indulge in fits of jocularity, a fact which T. II. would 
otherwise explain, but in my opinion with too strict a leaning 
towards anatomy, by referring it to man's possessing a funny 
bone and an os humerus. The stupidest person I ever knew, 
a mere sensualist, a gourmand, and a gourmet, composed one 
of the prettiest little poems I ever read. Scaliger said that he 
would rather have written Horace's Ode — " Quern tu, Mel- 
pomene,'''' than be made King of Arragon ; and for my own 
part, I would rather have indited the following stanzas, than 
be promoted to the Laureatship ! 

That my friend, a dull, plodding fellow, whose great busi- 
ness it had hitherto been to eat, drink, and sleep, should spread 
his fancy's wings, and indulge in a poetical flight, is perhaps 
less marvellous, than that the first and only essay of his muse, 
should exhibit a tenderness so touching, combined with aspira- 
tions so delicate and ethereal. But we must not tantalize the 
reader by withholding from him any longer our author's 

LOVE SONG. 

What mistress half so dear as mine, 

Half so well dress'd, so pungent, fragrant, 
Who can such attributes combine, 

To charm the constant, fix the vagrant ? 
Who can display such varied arts, 

To suit the taste of saint and sinner, 
Who go so near to touch their hearts, 

As thou, my darling, dainty dinner ? 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 149 

Still my breast owns a rival queen, 

A bright-eyed nymph, of sloping shoulders, 
Whose ruddy cheeks and graceful mien, 

Entrance the sense of all beholders. 
Oh ! when thy lips to mine are press'd, 

"What transports titillate my throttle ! 
My love can find new life and rest, 

In thee, and thee alone, my bottle ! 

INDEPENDENCE— The boast of— is a trait of vulgarity, 
and sometimes of insincerity, since professors are not always 
performers. In reality we are all more independent than is 
generally imagined, for the whole world can neither take from 
us what nature has given, nor give us what nature has denied. 

INFERIOES — A term which we are ever ready to apply 
to those beneath us in station, without considering whether it 
be applicable in any other sense. Many men may be our 
superiors without being our equals ; and many may be our 
nominal inferiors to whom we are by no means equal. 

Inferiority, in others, whether of rank, fortune, or talent, 
never offends, because it conveys a silent homage to our self- 
love. This is the secret of condescension in the great. 

INNOVATION — The unanswerable objection urged 
against all improvement. We have already quoted the dic- 
tum of Bacon — that a froward retention of custom is as turbu- 
lent a thing as an innovation. This was not the opinion of 
Ignatius Loyola, who, in order to avoid any innovation in the 
shape of his boot, after having fractured his leg, ordered a 
considerable part of the bone to be sawed off, thus proving 
himself to be a conservative of the true discriminating stamp. 
To say that all new things are bad, is to say that old things 
were bad in their commencement, for the most ancient were 
once new ; and whatever is now most firmly established was 
once innovation, not even excepting Christianity itself. 

INQUISITIVENESS— An itch for prying into other peo- 
ple's affairs, to the neglect of our own ; — an ignorant hanker- 
ing after all such knowledge as is not worth knowing; — a 



150 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

curiosity to learn things that are not all curious. People of 
this stamp would rather be put to the question, than not ask 
questions; silence is torture to them. A genuine quidnunc 
prefers false news to none ; he piques himself upon having 
the very first information of things that never happened. It 
is supposed that the Americans have attained the greatest art 
in parrying inquisitiveness, because they are more exposed to 
it ; but a well-known cockney wag, at a late period of political 
excitement, maintained a defensive colloquy with a rustic in- 
quisitive, which could hardly have been excelled by any Yankee 
performer. In travelling post, he was obliged to stop at a vil- 
lage to replace a horse's shoe, when the Paul Pry of the place 
bustled up to the carriage window, and, without waiting for 
the ceremony of introduction, exclaimed — " Good morning, 
Sir ! — horse cast a shoe, I see — I suppose, Sir, you be going 
to — " Here he paused, expecting the name of the place to be 
supplied; but the citizen answered — "You are quite right, 
Sir ; I generally go there at this season." " Ay — hum — do 
ye ? — and no doubt you be come now from — " — " Eight again, 
Sir ; I live there." " Oh, ay, do ye ? But I see it be a Lon- 
don shay ; pray, Sir, is there any thing stirring in London ? " 
" Yes ; plenty of other chaises, and carriages of all sorts." 
" Ay, ay, of course ; but what do folks say ? " " Their pray- 
ers every Sunday." " That is not what I mean ; I wish to 
know whether there is any thing new and fresh ? " " Yes, 
bread and herrings." " Anan ! you be a queer chap. Pray, 
Muster, may I ask your name ? " " Fools and clowns call me 
4 muster,' but I am, in reality, one of the frogs of Aristophanes, 
and my genuine name is Brekekekex Koax. Drive on, postil- 



HSTSTINCT — Animal — The exertion of mental power, 
without the exercise of reason or deliberation : — the implanted 
principle that determines the will of brutes, and is generally 
limited to the great objects of nature — self-preservation, the 
procurement of food, and the continuance of the species. An 
intelligent being, having a motive in view for the performance 
of any particular operation, will set about it either similarly 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 151 

to others, or in a different mode, according to circumstances, 
Ms views and powers of action being almost infinitely varied ; 
bnt irrational beings never deviate from the instincts with 
which they are born, and which are adapted to their particu- 
lar economy. Hence, animals are stationary, while man is 
progressive. Beavers construct their habitations, birds their 
nests, bees their hive, and the spider its web, with an admira- 
ble ingenuity ; but the most sagacious of them cannot apply 
their skill to purposes beyond the sphere of their particular 
wants, nor do any of them improve, in the smallest degree, on 
their predecessors. Exactly as they respectively built at the 
time of creation, so will they continue to build until the end 
of the world. To illustrate the contrary tendency, and the 
progressiveness of man in his habitations, we should compare 
a Hottentot's kraal with St. Peter's or St. Paul's. 

Among the peculiarities of instinct, an investigating phi- 
osopher has discovered this, that no horse ever yet found a 
mare's nest : that discovery can only be made by a jackass. 

INSTINCTS — Human — Natural prejudices, to reject the 
influence of which, in the education of youth, is, itself, one of 
the most unreasonable of prejudices. " Why should we scru- 
ple," asks Mrs. Barbauld, " to lead a child to right opinions, 
in the same way by which nature leads him to right practices ? 
He may be left to find out that mustard will bite his tongue, 
but he must be prejudiced against ratsbane." 

INSTITUTIONS— must be fitted to the different ages of 
the world's mind, just as his clothes are altered and adjusted 
to the different ages of an individual's body. When we have 
outgrown either, they should be cast aside ; unless we wish 
our movements to be cramped, or that which restrains them 
to be violently rent asunder. 

Institutions may be compared to certain fruits ; when un- 
ripe, no storm disturbs them; when ripe, a puff will blow 
them down. 

INTOLERANCE— Being irreligious for the sake of reli- 
gion, and hating our fellow-creatres, out of a pretended love 



152 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

for their Creator. Intolerance has more lives than a cat : you 
cannot even starve it to death. Deprive its right hand of its 
cunning, by taking away the sword wherewith it smote infi- 
dels ; its nostrils of the soul-rejoicing odor of a roasting here- 
tic ; its ears of the delightful groans of imprisoned or tormented 
non-conformists ; it will still pick up its crumbs of comfort, 
and contrive to subsist upon the remaining modicum of reli- 
gious pains and penalties, or of legal punishments for the free- 
dom of opinion. And while thus employed, the fiend Intol- 
erance boasts of her godlike qualities, and especially of her mar- 
vellous liberality. Supported by jails and judges, she employs 
the sword of law (not justice) to clip the wings of thought, and 
then complacently exclaims to her mutilated victim — " Behold ! 
you are free as the air — you may fly whithersoever you please : 
who so liberal, so generous, so tolerant as I? " 

INNUEKDO — Condemning by insinuation. In the Irish 
House of Commons, before the Union, Mr. Grattan thus at- 
tacked Mr. Corrie : "I will not call him villain, because he is 
Chancellor of the Exchequer ; I will not call him liar, because 
he is a privy counsellor ; but I will say of him that he is one 
who has taken advantage of the privilege of this House to utter 
language to which in any other place, my answer would have 
been a blow." The result of which was, of course, a duel. 

There was nothing like innuendo in the remark of an out- 
spoken member of a "Western Legislature: "Mr. Speaker," 
said he, "I would like to know how long that blackguard is 
to go on boring me to death with his speech ? " 

IRISH WIT — is ready wit. Various phases of it are re- 
corded as follows by a traveller. 

When I heard a grave gentleman-like man, at the Bally- 
brogue Station of the Great Punster Railway, say to a friend, 
who asked him how he should spend the half-hour he would 
have to wait, that he should spend it thinking of all the kind 
things he (the friend) had been saying to him, I said, " The 
Irish are a polite people." 

When I saw, at a Dublin theatre, the whole house to a man 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 153 

get on their legs, and howl at the manager because he wouldn't 
introduce a national jig in the middle of La Sonnambula, I 
said, " The Irish are an excitable people" 

When a Killarney guide swore to me on the tomb of his 
grandmother that there was a small lake up in Mullacap, coun- 
ty Kerry, which contained a giant eel, that swam twice round 
the inclosure every day at two o'clock, with a pan of old gould 
tied to his tail, I said, " The Irish are a superstitious people." 

"When a Tipperary landlord, in a Galway railway carriage, 
told me he was surnamed "the Woodcock," because he had 
been shot at so often by the " noblest tinantry " and missed, 
I said, " The Irish area revengeful people." 

When I saw my friend Mike Eooney's best blue breeches 
stuffed into his window to keep out the rain, I said, " The Irish 
are a thoughtless people." 

And lastly, when I refused the beggar-woman at Castlebar 
a half-penny, and she ironically hoped " the Lord would make 
my bed that night in heaven," I said, " The Irish are a witty 
people" 

IVY — A vegetable corruptionist, which for the purpose of 
its own support, attaches itself, with the greatest tenacity, to 
that which is the most antiquated and untenable, and the full- 
est of holes, flaws, and imperfections. 

JEALOUSY — Tormenting yourself, for fear you should be 
tormented by another. "Why," asks Eochefoucauld, "does 
not jealousy, which is born with love, always die with it ?" 
He would have found an answer to this question, had he re- 
flected that self-love never dies. Jealousy is the greatest of 
misfortunes, and excites the least pity. 

JOKES — The cayenne of conversation, and the salt of life. 
" A joke's prosperity," says Shakespeare, " lies in the ear of 
the hearer ; " and indeed it is sometimes exceedingly difficult 
to pronounce whether it be a good one or a bad one, risibly 
speaking, for a don mot may be too witty to be pleasant, or at 
least to elicit laughter ; while a poor pleasantry, by the help 



154 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

of some ludicrous turn, or expression, or association of ideas, 
may provoke cachinnation, a gorge deployee. Nay, there are 
cases in which a joke becomes positively good from its being 
so intolerably bad, and is applauded, in the inverse ratio of its 
merit, as the greatest honors are sometimes showered upon 
men who have the least honor. The admiration excited by 
the highest order of wit is generally serious, because it sets us 
thinking. It was said of a crafty Israelite, who deserted the 
Hebrew faith, without embracing that of the Christians, and 
yet endeavored to make both parties subservient to his selfish 
views, that he resembled the blank leaf between the Old and 
New Testament, belonging to neither, and making a cover of 
both. No one would laugh at this ; it is exactly that descrip- 
tion of wit which has been defined " an unexpected association 
of apparently dissimilar ideas, exciting pleasure and surprise." 
Lord Byron was once asked by a friend, in the green room of 
Drury Lane Theatre, whether he did not think Miss Kelly's 
acting in the " Maid and the Magpie " exceedingly natural ? — ■ 
" I really cannot say," replied his lordship ; "I was never 
innocent of stealing a silver spoon." This is drollery rather 
than wit, and excites our laughter, without claiming any por- 
tion of our admiration. 

One of our poets, a remarkably cadaverous-looking man, 
recited a poem, descriptive of a country walk, in which the 
following couplet occurred : — 

" The redbreast, with his furtive glance, 
Comes and looks at me askance ; " — 

upon which a wag exclaimed — " Gad ! if it had been a car- 
rion-crow, he would have stared you full in the face ; " a re- 
mark so humorous and unexpected, that it was received with 
a unanimous shout of laughter. Here the absurdity of the 
idea, if it did not amount to wit, was something better, or, at 
all events, more stimulative of the risible faculties. 

JUDGMENT — A faculty of which very few people have 
enough to discover that they want more. In forming a judg- 
ment of each other, the sexes usually proceed upon the falsest 
and most deceitful grounds. If a woman be struck by a man's 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 155 

exterior, she invariably thinks well of his morals and his tal- 
ents : gain her love, and yon secure her esteem ; she judges 
of every thing by the impression made upon herself, and in 
the credulity that prompts her to believe what she wishes, is 
easily led away by her confiding and affectionate nature. 
Men, sexually speaking, are still more blind and rash in their 
judgment, or, rather, in their total want of it. If they are 
smitten by a pretty face, they inquire no further, and ask but 
one question — Will you have me ? They marry the face, of 
which the beauty is to last, perhaps, for one year only — at 
most for ten, — and they know little or nothing of the mind 
with which they are to be associated until death. In balanc- 
ing the respective motives of the sexes, the advantage is, as 
usual, all on the side of the females. Both are precipitate, 
and both wrong ; but women are misled by their trust and 
their affections, while men fall into the same error from the 
influence of their passions, and their senses. If any of my 
male readers doubt this judgment, let them doubt their own. 

KING — According to the doctrine of despots and their 
worshippers, the hereditary proprietor of a nation ; — accord- 
ing to reason, its accountable first magistrate. Monarchs are 
the spoilt children of fortune ; and, like the juveoile members 
of the class, are often wayward, peevish, and ill at ease. We 
talk of being " as happy as a king ; " but which of us is not 
happier, — at least, in love and friendship, the great sweeteners 
of life ? There is no courtship in courts. A king goes a woo- 
ing in the person of his privy counsellors ; marries one whom 
he never saw, in order to please the nation, of which he is the 
ruler, only to be its slave ; and is generally cut off from those 
domestic enjoyments that constitute the highest charm of 
existence. Friendship cannot offer him a substitute, for 
equality is its basis ; and he who wears a crown is at once 
prevented by station, and prohibited by etiquette, from indulg- 
ing in any communion of hearts. Truly he ought to be ex- 
empted from all other taxes, since he pays quite enough for 
his painful pre-eminence. 

A wise man, however well qualified to shine in courts, will 



156 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

seldom desire to share their dangerous splendor. Diogenes, 
while he was washing cabbages, seeing Aristippns approach, 
cried out to him — " If you knew how to live upon cabbages, 
you would not be paying court to a tyrant." — " If you knew 
how to live with kings," replied Aristippns, " you would not be 
washing cabbages." 

" Of all kinds of men," says a French writer, " God is least 
beholden to kings ; for he does the most for them, and they 
the least for him." And yet the patriot king, who confers 
happiness upon a whole nation, must render a more acceptable 
service to the Deity than any other mortal can proffer. 

KISSES — admit of a greater variety of character than per- 
haps even my female readers are aware, or that Joannes 
Secundus has recorded. Eight basial diversities are mentioned 
in Scripture ; viz. — The kiss of 

Salutation, . . Sam. xx. 41. 1 Thess. v. 26. 

Valediction, . . Kuth ii. 9. 

^Reconciliation, . 2 Sam. xiv. 33. 

Subjection, . . Psalms ii. 12. 

Approbation, . . Proverbs ii. 4. 

Adoration, . . 1 Kings xix. 18. 

Treachery, . . Matt. xxvi. 49. 

Affection, . . Gen. xlv. 15. 

But the most honorable kiss, both to the giver and receiver, 
was that which Queen Margaret of Prance, in the presence of 
the whole court, impressed upon the lips of the ugliest man in 
the kingdom, Alain Chartier, whom she one day found asleep, 
exclaiming to her astonished attendants — " I do not kiss the 
man, but the mouth that has uttered so many charming 
things." Ah ! it was worth while to be a poet in those days. 

KITCHEN — The burial-place of the epicure's health and 
fortune. — " What a small kitchen ! " exclaimed Queen Eliza- 
beth, after going over a handsome mansion. — " It is by having 
so small a kitchen, that I am enabled to keep so large a house," 
replied its owner. 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 157 

KNOWLEDGE — A molehill removed from the mountain 
of our ignorance. "Where shall we discover a finer illustration 
of disinterestedness than the outcry raised against the taxes 

on knowledge by Alderman , who can never be affected 

by the impost. 

A knowledge of useful things, of which others are ignorant, 
is never considered an excuse for an ignorance of trifles that 
are generally known. 

After a scholar has attained a certain age, no knowledge 
that you can let in upon his mind will do him any harm. 
Cattle may be admitted into an orchard, to graze it after the 
trees are grown up, but not when they are young. 

" What is the use of so much knowledge ? " asks Sydney 
Smith, — " what is the use of so much life ? — what are we to do 
with the seventy years of existence allotted to us ? — and how 
are we to live them out to the last ? I solemnly declare that, 
but for the love of knowledge, I should consider the life of the 
meanest hedger and ditcher, as preferable to that of the great- 
est and richest man ! for the fire of our minds is like the fire 
which the Persians burn in the mountains, — it flames night 
and day, and is immortal, and not to be quenched ! Upon 
something it must act and feed, — upon the pure spirit of 
knowledge, or upon the foul dregs of polluting passions. 
Therefore, when I say, in conducting your understanding, love 
knowledge with a great love, with a vehement love, with a 
love coeval with life, what do I say, but love innocence, — love 
virtue, — love purity of conduct, — love that which, if you are 
rich and great, will sanctify the blind fortune which has made 
you so, and make men call it justice, — love that which, if you 
are poor, will render your poverty respectable, and make the 
proudest feel it unjust to laugh at the meanness of your for- 
tunes." 

KNOWLEDGE— of the world. The fancied wisdom of 
those whose reflections are created by a mirror. There is a 
class of persons who think they evince prodigious penetration 
into the human heart, when they ascribe every action to the 
worst possible motives, taking it for granted, that all men are 



158 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

sordid, profligate, or designing, all women dissipated, thought- 
less, and inconstant. This misanthropical ignorance they pre- 
sume to term knowledge of the world. So it may be, but it 
is of that world only which is comprised in their own persons. 

LAMPS — When these were brought in at night, the 
ancient Greeks used to salute them with the words Xaipe (fnXcou 
<pcos — Salve arnica lux ! — The human owls of modern times, 
when the intellectual light is spreading around them, are so 
far from hailing it with a blessing, that they retire to their 
cells and lurking places, and hoot at it as a pestilent innova- 
tion. "While stabbing at the liberties and happiness of man- 
kind, they would rather cry out, with Macbeth, — 

" Come, thick night, 
And pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell, 
That my keen knife see not the wound it makes, 
Nor Heaven peep through the blanket of the dark, 
To cry, hold! hold!" 

LAWS — When I hear any man talk of an unalterable law, 
the only effect it produces upon me is to convince me that he 
is an unalterable fool. 

LANGUAGES — in several instances have derived their 
names from a single word. Sismondi writing on the literature 
of the Trouveres, says, " The Provencal was called the Langue 
d'Oc, and the Wallon the Langue $ Oil, or cTOni, from the 
affirmative word of each language, as the Italian was then 
called the Langue de Si, and the German the Langue de Ya." 
Not only to a whole language, but to a whole life may the 
word yes give its color and character, as many an unhappy 
wife has found to her cost. 

Language, which is the uniting bond and the very medium 
of communion between men, is at the same time by the great 
variety of tongues, the means of severing and estranging 
nations more than any thing else. In this respect it may be 
compared to the Ourang-outang, which, according to the trav- 
elling showman, "forms the connecting link which separates 
mankind from the human race." 



THE TIN TEUMPET. 159 

A Frenchman studied with infinite pains for several years 
a language which he supposed to he Swedish. He did not 
discover, till he had mastered it, that it was Bas Breton. 

LAUGH — A Hoese — The sorry hack upon which buffoons 
and jesters are fain to ride home, when they want to make a 
retreat, and are at a loss for any other conveyance. Such 
Merry Andrews save their credit as the Eomans did their 
Capitol, by the cackling of geese. To succeed in this object, 
all expedients are considered fair ; to win the laugh, is to win 
the battle ; if you cannot, therefore, check-mate your adversary 
by reasoning, dumb-found him by your superior learning, or 
surpass him in the brilliancy of your wit, knock him down by a 
poor pun, the worse the better ; set the example of a hearty 
laugh, for this is catching, though wit is not, and make your 
escape while the company are exercising their risible muscles'; 
they will generally be with you, for they like to see a con- 
queror capsized. The late Jack Taylor, of pleasant memory, 
who was no mean proficient in thus turning the tables upon 
his opponent, when he found himself losing, has recorded one 
of his exploits. He was rapidly losing ground in a literary 
discussion, when the opposite party exclaimed, " My good friend, 
you are not such a rare scholar as you imagine ; you are an 
every day man." " "Well, and you are a weak one," replied 
Taylor, who instantly jumped upon the back of a horse laugh, 
and rode victoriously over his prostrate conqueror. 

LAUGHTER — A faculty bestowed exclusively upon man, 
and one which there is, therefore, a sort of impiety in not 
exercising as frequently as we can. We may say with Titus, 
that we have lost a day if it have passed without laughing. 
The pilgrims at Mecca consider it so essential a part of their 
devotion, that they call upon their prophet to preserve them 
from sad faces. " Ah ! " cried Rabelais, with an honest pride, 
as his friends were weeping around his death-bed, " if I were 
to die ten times over, I should never make you cry half so 
much as I have made you laugh." " Eisu inepto res ineptior 
nulla est," says an anti-risible reader ; but if laughter be gen- 



160 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

nine, and consequently a means of innocent enjoyment, can it 
be inept ? 

LAWYERS — generally know too mnch of law to have a 
very clear perception of justice, just as divines are often too 
deeply read in theology, to appreciate the full grandeur and 
the proper tendencies of religion. Losing the abstract in the 
concrete, the comprehensive in the technical, the principal in 
its accessories, both are in the predicament of the rustic, who 
could not see London for the houses. It has been invidiously 
said, that lawyers pass their time in taking advantage of their 
contemporaries ; but if we may credit the authority of Foote, 
they sometimes outwit the undertaker even after their death. 
That facetious person being once summoned into the country, 
by the relatives of a respectable practitioner, to whom he had 
been appointed executor, was asked what directions should be 
given respecting the funeral ? " What may be your practice 
in the country," said the wag, " I do not exactly know ; but 
in London, when a lawyer dies, his body is disposed of in a 
very cheap and simple manner. We lock it up in a room over 
night, and by the next morning it has always totally disap- 
peared. Whither it has been conveyed we cannot tell to a 
certainty ; but there is invariably such a strong smell of brim- 
stone in the chamber, that we can form a shrewd guess at the 
character of the conveyancer." 

LEARNING — very often a knowledge of words, and an 
ignorance of things ; a common act of memory, which may be 
exercised without common sense. A mere scholar is generally 
known by his unacquaintance with every thing but languages, 
which have so filled his head, that they have left room foi 
nothing else. He mistakes the steps for the temple of Mi- 
nerva; the shrine for the, goddess herself; and is as proud of 
his mind's empty purse, as if there were money in it ! Pedan- 
try's jargon will no more improve our understandings, than 
the importunate clink of a smoke-jack, will fill our bellies. 
The elaborate triflings of scholiasts and commentators, the 
jingling sophistries of logic, and what has been technically 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 161 

termed the learning of the schools, all of which were so many 
antidotes to sound sense and reflection, may well be thrown 
overboard, when many a member of our Mechanics' Institutes, 
possesses useful knowledge that might puzzle a whole convent 
of college monks. 

Of all learning the most difficult department is to unlearn. 
Drawing a mistake or prejudice out of the head, is as painful 
as drawing a tooth, and the patient never thanks the operator 
for the " demptus per vim mentis gratissimus error.'''' No man 
likes to admit that his favorite opinion (perhaps the only child 
of his mind, and cherished accordingly) is an illegitimate one. 
Sluggish intellects are ever the most obstinate, for that which 
has cost us much to acquire, it costs us much to give up ; and 
the older we get, the more tenaciously we cling to our errors, 
as those weeds are most difficult to eradicate that have had 
the longest time to root themselves. Harvey could find no 
physician, turned of forty, who would admit the circulation of 
the blood. Numbers of these quadragenarian owls are now 
to be found in every profession, while we have Jesuits enough 
of all ages, who sigh for the suppressed Inquisition, whenever 
a political or religious Galileo promulgates any truth that 
threatens to interfere with established falsehoods. These buz- 
zards have yet to acquire the most useful of all learning — that 
of unlearning. 

LIAES — Verbal forgers, stiflers of truth, and murderers of 
fact. They will sometimes attempt to conceal their failing, 
by affecting a scrupulous adherence to veracity. B — , who 
rarely shamed the Devil, once said of his friend, " Jack is a 
good fellow, but, it must be confessed, he has his failings. I 
am sorry to say so, but I will not tell a lie for any man. 
Amicus Jack — sed magis arnica Veritas, — I love my friend, but 
I love truth still more." " My dear B — , ,: said a bystander, 
laying his hand upon his shoulder — " I never expected that 
you would have preferred a perfect stranger to an old ac- 
quaintance." 

The ci-devant civic dandy, who, from his rising in the east 
and setting in the west, or, perhaps, from his want of personal 



162 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

beauty, quasi lucus a non lucendo, had acquired the nick- 
name of Apollo, once received a visit from a peer, whose pro- 
pensity to fibbing is well known. "I find," said his lordship, 
who is apt to mistake impertinence for jocularity, " that you 
are going to the fancy ball to-night, and I presume you will 
appear in the character of Apollo." " I had some such idea," 

replied , " and I am glad your lordship has called, because 

you can now accompany me as my lyre." 

LIBEL — Law of — a libel upon the law. Even under the 
tyranny of some of the Eoman emperors, there seems to have 
been a greater latitude of speech and writing than is permitted 
by the laws of modern England. Adverting to the reigns of 
Trajan and Aurelius, Tacitus says — " Bara temporum felici- 
tate, ubi sentire qum velis, et quae sentias dicere licet." " By 
the rare happiness of those days you might think what you 
wished, and speak as you thought." 

The law of the navy is more narrowly circumscribed : " You 
may think what you please ; but must not think too loud ! " 

LIBELLEES — Literary bravos, supported by illiterate 
cowards. If the receiver of stolen goods be worse than the 
thief, so must the purchaser of libels be more culpable than 
their author. As the peruser of a slanderous journal would 
write what he reads, had he the talent, so the actual maligner 
would become a malefactor, had he the opportunity and the 
courage. " Maledicus d malefico nisi occasione, non dijfert," 
says Quintilian. " He who stabs you in the dark, with a 
pen, would do the same with- a pen-knife, were he equally safe 
from detection and the law." 

A libeller's mouth has been compared to that of a volcano 
— the lighter portions of what it vomits forth are dissipated 
by the winds ; the heavier ones fall back into the throat 
whence they were disgorged. The aspersions of libellers may, 
perhaps, be better compared to fuller's earth, which, though 
it may seem to dirt you at first, only leaves you more pure 
and spotless, when it is rubbed off. 



THE TIN TEUMPET. 163 

LIBEAET — A precious catacomb, wherein are embalmed 
and preserved imperishably, the great minds of the dead who 
will never die. 

" Libraries," says Lord Bacon, " are as the shrines where all 
the relics of the ancient saints, full of true virtue, and that 
without delusion or imposture, are preserved and reposed." 

" In the library of the world," says Champfort, " men 
have hitherto been ranged according to the form, the size, and 
the binding. The time is coming when they will take rank 
and order according to their contents and intrinsic merits." 

LIFE — A momentary convulsion between two tranquil eter- 
nities ; — an avenue to death, as death is the gate that opens to 
a new and more enduring life. 

It is the activity of the mind, not the functional vitality of 
the body, that constitutes life. By the enlargement of our 
ideas, and the general diffusion of knowledge, consequent upon 
our increased powers of locomotion and comparison, we may 
condense a whole existence into a narrow compass of time, 
and enjoy a dozen such lives as were passed by the most 
enlightened of our ancestors. And yet, doubly precious as 
this state of being has become, how many are compelled to 
throw away life for a livelihood, et propter mtam vivendi per- 
dere causas. Nevertheless, their mere vitality, even in spite 
of their discontents, is an exhaustible source of gratification, 
and might be rendered much more so, would they but con- 
template it in the proper light. " Enjoy thy existence," says 
Jean Paul Eichter, " more than thy manner of existence, and 
let the dearest object of thy consciousness be the conscious- 
ness of life." 

Though nothing is so closely allied as life to death, no two 
things are so utterly different from each other. 

The ancient Egyptians considered every part of the uni- 
verse to be endowed with an inherent life, energy, and intelli- 
gence ; worshipping the active phenomena of nature, without 
discriminating cause from effect. They believed the elements 
themselves to be animated ; and why should they not be ? — 
All of them have motion and a voice — the great constituents 



164 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

of vitality ; and, if not themselves alive, they are all instinct 
with life. 

Life has been compared to tragedy, comedy, and farce. It 
was reserved for Talleyrand to consider it as a one act piece. 
" I know not why the world calls me a wicked man," said 
Eulhiere, "for I never, in the whole conrse of my life, com- 
mitted more than one act of wickedness." — " But when will 
this act he at an end ? " asked Talleyrand. 

LIGHT — The new — It was said of Burns, that the light 
which led him astray, was light from heaven; a false and 
unguarded assertion, for no light from heaven can ever lead 
man astray. The spiritual new light is a Jack-o'-lantern, 
which sometimes lures its followers into quagmires and pit- 
falls ; or it may be the glitter of gold, and the dazzling lustre 
of worldly greatness, by which they are lighted to dignities 
and high places. Of this latter we will cite an instance from 
the life of Andrew Melville, by Dr. M'Crie : — " When Oowper 
was made Bishop of Galloway, an old woman, who had been 
one of his parishioners, and a favorite, could not be persuaded 
that her minister had deserted the Presbyterian cause. Ee- 
solved to satisfy herself, she paid him a visit at the Oanongate, 
where he had his residence, as Dean of the Ghapel Eoyal. 
The retinue of servants through which she had to pass, stag- 
gered the good woman's confidence, and being ushered into a 
room, where the bishop sat, she exclaimed — ' Oh, sir, what's 
this ? — and ye ha' really left the guid cause, and turned prel- 
ate ! ' — ' Janet ! ' said the bishop, ' I have got a new light on 
this subject.' — ' So I see,' replied Janet ; ' for when ye was at 
Perth, ye had but ae candle, and now ye ha' got twa before 
ye. — That's your new light.' " 

LIGHT — Like the circulating blood, which returns to the 
heart, is supposed to return to the sun, after having performed 
the functions for which it was emitted from that body. Even 
so will the soul, our intellectual light, return to its divine 
source, when released from the body, to whose earthly pur- 
poses it has ministered. 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 165 

LITERARY COTERIE— Generally a set of well-dressed 
prosperous gentlemen, clean, civil personages, well in with 
people in power, — delighted with every existing institution — 
and almost with every existing circumstance: — and, every 
now and then, one of these personages writes a little hook ; — 
and the rest praise that little book — expecting to he praised, 
in then* turn, for their own little hooks. 

LITERATI — may be divided into two classes, those who 
live to study, and those who study to live ; the former, tend- 
ing to elevate literature, and the latter, to degrade it. The_ 
first generally survive their own death ; the last often die and 
are forgotten in their lifetime, for that which is written for. 
the day must expire with it. 

LITERATURE — Amebican - — "Wits are not always proph- 
ets, whatever airs to that effect they may assume. Not quite 
forty years ago Sydney Smith spoke thus of American science 
and literature : " In the four quarters of the globe, who reads 
an American book ? or goes to an American play ? or looks 
at an American picture or statue ? What does the world yet 
owe to American physicians or surgeons? What new sub- 
stances have their chemists discovered? or what old ones 
have they analyzed ? What new constellations have been dis- 
covered by the telescopes of Americans? What have they 
done m mathematics ? 

" Literature the Americans have none — no native literature, 
we mean. It is all imported. They had a Franklin, indeed ; 
and may afford to live for half a century on his fame. There 
is, or was, a Mr. D wight, who wrote some poems ; and his 
baptismal name was Timothy. There is also a small account 
of Virginia, by Jefferson, and an epic by Joel Barlow ; and 
some pieces of pleasantry by Mr. Irving. But why should the 
Americans write books, when a six weeks' passage brings 
them, in their own tongue, our sense, science, and genius, 
in bales and hogsheads ? Prairies, steam-boats, grist-mills, are 
their natural objects for centuries to come. Then, when they 
have got to the Pacific Ocean, epic poems, plays, pleasures of 



166 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

memory, and all the elegant gratifications of an ancient people 
who have tamed the wild earth, and set down to amuse them- 
selves. This is the natural march of human affairs." 



LOVER — See Lunatic — A man, who in his anxiety to 
obtain possession of another, has lost possession of himself. 
Lovers are seldom tired of one another's society, because they 
are always speaking of themselves. Let us not, however, dis- 
parage this fond infatuation, for all its tendencies are elevat- 
ing. He who has passed through life without ever being in 
love, has had no spring-time — no summer in his existence ; 
his heart is as a flowering plant which hath never blown — 
'never developed itself — never put forth its beauty and its per- 
fume — never given nor received pleasure. 

The love of our youth, like Kennel coal, is so inflammable, 
that it may be kindled by almost any match ; but if its tran- 
sient blaze do not pass away in smoke, its flame, too bright 
and ardent to last long, soon exhausts and consumes itself. 
The love of our maturer age is like coke, which, when once 
ignited, burns with a steady and enduring heat, emitting 
neither smoke nor flame. 

No wonder that we hear so much of the sorrows of love, 
for there is a pleasure even in dwelling upon its pains. — Rev- 
elling in tears, its fire, like that of Naphtha, likes to swim 
upon water. 

Lovers must not trust too implicitly to their visual organs. 
A tender swain once reproached his inamorata with suffering 
a rival to kiss her hand, a fact which she indignantly denied. 
—"But I saw it:'— "Nay, then," cried the offended fair, "I 
am now convinced you do not love me, since you believe your 
eyes in preference to my word." 

LUCK — good and bad is but a synonyme, in the great 
majority of instances, for good and bad judgment. The pru- 
dent, the considerate, and the circumspect, seldom complain 
of their ill luck ; but I should shrewdly suspect the discretion 
of the grumbler, who protested that Fortune always made 
clubs or spades trumps, when he had not a single black card 



THE TIN TKUMPET. 16? 

in his hand ; and that even when he fell backwards he was 
sure to break his nose. 

LUXURY — The conqueror of conquerors — the consump- 
tion of states — the dry-rot of the constitution — the avenger of 
the defeated and the oppressed. Poverty, conquest, wealth, 
luxury, decay ; such is the Eound-Eobin history of the world — 

"Ssevior armis 
Luxuria incubuit, victumque ulciscitur, orbem." 

Mandeville's position, that private vices are public benefits, 
and that individual luxury, even when pushed to a faulty 
excess, is a public advantage, cannot be maintained ; for noth- 
ing that is injurious to one, can be good for many. 

MAECENAS — A man who employs his riches in such a 
way as to attract the admiration of fools. 

MACKINTOSH— Sir James — was an eminent lawyer and 
judge ; but a man of gigantic mind accustomed, to deal with 
the greatest subjects, and incapable of reducing his visual 
focus.. "If he had to write on pepper," said Sydney Smith, 
" he would say, ' Pepper may philosophically be described as 
a dusty and highly -pulverized seed of an Oriental fruit, an 
article rather of condiment than diet, which, dispersed lightly 
over the surface of food, with no other rule than the caprice 
of the consumer, communicates pleasure rather than affords 
nutrition, and by adding a tropical flavor to the gross and suc- 
culant viands of the north, approximates the different regions 
of the earth, explains the objects of commerce, and justifies 
the industry of man.' " 

MAGNANIMITY — is as often littleness as greatness of 
mind. There is a cheap species, which prompts us to feel 
complacently towards our enemy when he has enabled us to 
make a happy repartee. 

We forgive him all his previous attempts to lower us, be- 
cause he has unintentionally furnished us with a momentary 



168 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

triumph; so completely does our love of self predominate, 
even over our dislike of others. The more cruelly we have 
mauled our poor vanquished opponent, the more tenderly do 
we regard him ; and if we have well-nigh blown him to atoms, 
we feel as if we could never again injure a hair of his head. 
As there is no magnanimity so cheap, there is none so grati- 
fying as this, for we like to purchase our virtues on good 
terms. One of Sheridan's creditors, after having long and 
vainly dunned him, at length suggested, that if he could not 
discharge the principal of the debt, he might, at least, pay the 
interest. " ISTo," said the wag ; " it is not my interest to pay 
the principal, nor my principle to pay the interest." Though 
he had previously hated the man for his vulgar importunity, 
it is recorded that he took him into favor from that moment, 
and actually defrayed the amount of his bill, a rare instance 
of preference, considering that he seldom discharged any debt 
till he paid that of nature. 

Pleasant enough was the magnanimity of the person who, 
being reproached with not having revenged himself of a caning 
he had received, exclaimed, "• Sir, I never meddle with what 
passes behind my back ! " 

MAN" — An image of the Deity, which occasionally acts as 
if it were anxious to fill up a niche in the temple of the Devil. 
The only creature which, knowing its mortality and immor- 
tality, lives as if it were never to die, and too often dies as if 
it were never to live : — the soul being gifted with reason, the 
only one that acts irrational : — the nothing of yesterday — the 
dust of to-morrow. Man is a fleeting paradox, which the ful- 
ness of time alone can explain ; a living enigma, of which the 
solution will be found in death. 

MARRIAGE — A state of which it is unnecessary to de- 
scribe the great happiness, for two reasons : — first, because it 
would be superfluous to those who are in the enjoyment of its 
blessings ; and secondly, because it would be impossible to 
those who are not. 

Ilabituated as we are to the association of doves with 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 169 

loves, it seems startling to learn, on the authority of Pliny, 
that the Eomans considered the hawk a bird of particularly 
good omen in marriage, because it never eats the hearts of 
other birds ; thus intimating that no differences or quarrels, 
in the marriage state, ought ever to reach the heart. 

" Marriage," says Dr. Johnson, " is the best state for a man 
in general, and every man is a worse man, in proportion as he 
is unfit for the married state." It may be doubted, however, 
whether another of his positions could be maintained — " that 
marriages in general would be as happy, and often more so, if 
they were all made by the Lord Chancellor, upon a due con- 
sideration of character and circumstances, without the parties 
having any choice in the matter." 

In the pressure that now weighs upon all persons of lim- 
ited fortune, sisters, nieces, and daughters, are the only com- 
modities that our friends are willing to bestow upon us for 
nothing, and which we cannot afford to accept, even gratui- 
tously. It seems to have been the same, at a former period, 
in France. Maitre Jean Picard tells us that, when he was 
returning from the funeral of his wife, doing his best to look 
disconsolate, .such of the neighbors as had grown-up daughters 
and cousins came to him, and kindly implored him not to be 
inconsolable, as they could give him a second wife. — " Six 
weeks after," says Maitre Jean, " I lost my cow, and, though 
I really grieved upon this occasion, not one of them offered to 
give me another." 

It has been recorded by some anti-connubial wag, that 
when two widowers were once condoling together on the 
recent bereavement of their wives, one of them exclaimed, 
with a sigh, " Well may I bewail my loss, for I had so few 
differences with the dear deceased, that the last day of my 
marriage was as happy as the first." — " There I surpass you," 
said his friend, " for the last day of mine was happier ! " 

MASQUERADE — A synonyme for life and civilized so- 
ciety. There are two sorts of masquerade, simulation, or 
pretending to be what you are not : and dissimulation, or con- 
cealing what you are, and we are all mummers under one or 
8 



170 THE TLN" TEUMPET. 

the other of these categories, excepting a few performers at 
the two extremes of life, those who are above, and those who 
are beneath all regard for appearances. As a secret conscious- 
ness of their defects is always prompting hypocrites to disguise 
themselves in some assumed virtue, the only way to discover 
their real character, is to read them backwards, like a Hebrew 
book. 

Many masqueraders on the stage of real life, betray them- 
selves by overacting their part. 

The Eegent of France intending to go to a masquerade in 
the character of a lackey, and expressing an anxious wish to 
remain undetected, the Abbe Dubois suggested that this 
object might easily be attained, if he would allow him to go 
as his master, and to give him two or three kicks before the 
whole company. This was* arranged accordingly, but the 
pretended master applied his foot so rudely and so often, that 
the Eegent was fain to exclaim, " Gently, gently, Monsieur 
l'Abbe ! you are disguising me too much ! " 

MASTER — Being our own master, means that we are at 
liberty to be the slave of our own follies, caprices, and pas- 
sions. Generally speaking, a man cannot have a worse or 
more tyrannical master than himself. As our habits and lux- 
uries domineer over us, the moment we are in a situation to 
indulge them, few people are in reality so dependent as the 
independent. Poverty and subjection debar us from many 
vices by the impossibility of giving way to them : when we 
are rid and free from the domination of others, we are cor- 
rupted and oppressed by ourselves. There was some philoso- 
phy, therefore, in the hen-pecked husband, who being asked 
why he had placed himself so completely under the govern- 
ment of his wife, answered, " To avoid the worse slavery of 
being under my own." 

MEDICAL-PRACTICE— Guessing at Nature's intentions 
and wishes, and then endeavoring to subtitute man's. 

MELANCHOLY — Ingratitude to Heaven. As a good 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 171 

antidote to gloomy anticipations, we should all of us do well 
to recollect the saying of Sir Thomas More, 

" If evils come not — then onr fears are vain, 
And if they do,— fear but augments the pain." 

MEMOEY — Bochefoucauld says, " Every one complains of 
his memory, no one of his judgment." And why ? Beeacise 
we consider the former as depending upon nature ; and the 
latter upon ourselves Alleged want of memory is a most con- 
venient refuge for our self-love, since we can always throw it 
as a cloak over our ignorance. It is astonishing how much 
people are in the habit of forgetting what they never knew. 

"Strange," says the same writer, "that we can always 
remember the smallest thing that has happened to ourselves, 
and yet not recollect how often we have repeated it to the 
same person." , 

It is a benevolent provision of nature, that in old age the 
memory enjoys a second spring — a second childhood, and that 
while we forget all passing occurrences, many of which are 
but painful concomitants of old age, we have a vivid and de- 
lightful recollection of all the pleasures of youth. Many a 
graybeard, who seems to be lost in vacancy, as he sits silently 
twiddling his thumbs, is in fact chewing the mental end of 
past happiness, and enjoying a tranquil gratification, which 
youngsters might well envy. 

Objects become shadowy to the bodily eye, as they are 
more remote, but to the mental eye of age, the most distant 
are the most distinct. A man of eighty may forget that he 
was seventy, but he never forgets that he was once a boy. 
Who can doubt the immortality of the soul, when we see that 
the mind can thus pass out of bodily decrepitude into a state 
of rejuveniscence ? for this process amounts to a Palingenesia 
— a partial new birth out of a partial disease, preparatory to a 
total resurrection out of total dissolution. 

MINDS — Large ones, like pictures, are seen best at a dis- 
tance. Their beauties are thus enhanced, and their blemishes 



172 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

concealed,— a process which is reversed by a close inspection. 
This is the reason, to say nothing of envious motives, why we 
generally undervalue our contemporaries, and overrate the 
ancients. 

MINORITIES — It would he an entertaining change in 
human affairs to determine every thing by minorities. They 
are almost always in the right. 

MIRROR — John Taylor relates in his records, that having 
restored sight to a boy who had been born blind, the lad was 
perpetually amusing himself with a hand-glass, calling his own 
reflection his little man, and inquiring why he could make it do 
every thing that he did, except shut its eyes. A French lover, 
making a present of a mirror to his mistress, sent with it a 
poetical quatrain, which may be thus paraphrased : — 

"This mirror my object of love will unfold, 
Whensoe'er your regard it allures : — 
Oh ! would, when I'm gazing, that I might behold 
On its surface the object of yours 1 " 

But the following old epigram, on the same subject, is in a 
much finer strain : — 



When I revolve this evanescent state, 
How fleeting is its form, how short its date ; 
My being and my stay dependent still, 
Not on my own, but on another's will ; 
I ask myself, as I my image view, 
Which is the real shadow of the two." 



MISADVENTURE — as well as mischance and misfortune, 
are all the daughters of misconduct, and sometimes the mothers 
of Goodluck, Prosperity, and Advancement. To be thrown 
upon one's own resources, is to be cast into the very lap of 
fortune ; for our faculties then undergo a development, and 
display an energy of which they were previously unsuscepti- 
ble. Our minds are like certain drugs and perfumes, which 
must be crushed before they evince their vigor, and put forth 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 173 

their virtues. Lundy Foot, the celebrated snuff manufacturer, 
originally kept a small tobacconist's shop at Limerick. One 
night, his house, which was uninsured, was burnt to the 
ground. As he contemplated the smoking ruins on the fol- 
lowing morning, in a state bordering on despair, some of the 
poor neighbors, groping among the embers for what they 
could find, stumbled upon several canisters of un consumed, 
but half-baked snuff, which they tried, and found it so grate- 
ful to their noses, that they loaded their waistcoat pockets with 
the spoil. Lundy Foot, roused from his stupor, at length im- 
itated their example, and took a pinch of his own property, 
when he was instantly struck by the superior pungency and 
flavor it had acquired from the great heat to which it had 
been exposed. Treasuring up this valuable hint, he took an- 
other house in a place called Black-yard, and preparing a large 
oven for the purpose, set diligently about the manufacture of 
that high-dried commodity, which soon became widely-known 
as Black Yard snuff; a term subsequently corrupted into the 
more familiar word — Blackguard. Lundy Foot, making his 
customers pay literally through the nose, raised the price of 
his production, took a larger house in Dublin, and ultimately 
made a handsome fortune by having been ruined. 

MISANTHBOPE— Quite unworthy of Goethe's genial and 
penetrative mind is his misanthropical remark, that " each of 
us, the best as well as the worst, hides within him something, 
some feeling, some remembrance, which, if it were known, 
would make you hate him." More consonant would it have 
been to truth, as well as to an enlightened spirit of humanism, 
had he reversed the proposition, and exclaimed, in the words 
of Shakespeare — 

"There is some soul of goodness in things evil, 
Would men ohservingly distil it out! " 

Law's observation, " that every man knows something 
worse of himself than he is sure of in others," savors not of 
misanthrophy, but of that doubly-beneficial feeling which in- 
culcates individual humility, and universal charity. 



174 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

Rochefoucauld, and misanthropical writers of the same 
class, cannot succeed in giving any man, of a generous and 
clear intellect, an unfavorable opinion of human nature. Like 
the workers of tapestry, who always behold the wrong side, 
they themselves may see nothing but unfinished outlines, 
coarse materials, crooked ends, and glaring defects, and yet 
produce a portrait which, to those who contemplate it in 
front, and from a proper point of view, shall be full of grace, 
beauty, harmony, and proportion. 

MISER — One who, though he loves himself better than all 
the world, uses himself worse ; for he lives like a pauper, in 
order that he may enrich his heirs, whom he naturally hates, 
because he knows that they hate him, and sigh for his death. 
In this respect, misers have been compared to leeches, which, 
when they get sick and die, disgorge, in a minute, the blood 
they have been so long sucking up. La Bruyere tersely says 
— " Jeune on conserve pour la vieillesse : vieux on epargne pour 
la morty 

Pithy enough was the reply of the avaricious old man, 
who, being asked by a nobleman of doubtful courage what 
pleasure he found in amassing riches which he never used, 
answered — " Much the same that your Lordship has in wear- 
ing a sword." 

Perhaps the severest reproach ever made to a miser, was 
uttered by Yoltaire. At a subscription of the French Acad- 
emyfor some charitable object, each contributor putting in a 
louis oVor, the collector, by mistake, made a second application 
to a member, noted for his penuriousness. — " I have already 
paid," exclaimed the latter, with some asperity. — "I beg 
your pardon," said the applicant : "I have no doubt you paid ; 
I believe it, though I did not see it." — " And I saw it, and do 
not believe it," whispered Yoltaire. 

MISFORTUNE— is but another word for the follies, blun- 
ders, and vices, which, with a greater blindness, we attribute 
to the blind goddess, to the fates, to the stars, to any one, in 
short, but ourselves. Our own head and heart are the heaven 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 175 

and earth which we accuse, and make responsible for all our 
calamities. 

The prudent make the reverses by which they have been 
overthrown supply a basis for the restoration of their fallen 
fortunes, as the lava which has destroyed a house often fur- 
nishes the materials for rebuilding it. Fools and profligates, 
on the contrary, seek solace for their troubles, by plunging 
into sensual and gross pleasures, as the wounded buffalo rolls 
himself in the mud. 

The misfortune of the mischievous and evil-minded, is the 
good fortune of the virtuous ; the failure of the guilty, is the 
success of the innocent : to pity, therefore, the former, is, in 
some sort, to injure the latter, and to destroy the effect of the 
great moral lesson afforded by both. Let us keep our sympa- 
thies for the sufferings of the good. All men might be better 
reconciled to their fate, if they would recollect that there are 
two species of misfortune, at which we ought never to repine ; 
— viz. : that which we can, and that which we cannot, rem- 
edy ; — regret being, in the former case, unnecessary, in the 
latter unavailing. 

The same vanity which leads us to assign our misfortunes 
or misconduct to others, prompts us to attribute all our lucky 
chances to our own talent, prudence, and forethought. Not a 
word of the fates or stars when we are getting rich, and every 
thing goes on prosperously. So deeply-rooted in our nature 
is the tendency to make others responsible for our own mis- 
deeds, that we lapse into the process almost unconsciously. 
When the clergyman has committed a peccadillo, he is doubly 
severe towards his congregation, and does vicarious penance 
in the persons of his flock. Men scold their children, servants, 
and dependents, for their own errors ; coachmen invariably 
punish their horses after they themselves have made any stu- 
pid blunder in driving them ; and even children, when they 
have tumbled over a chair, revenge themselves for their awk- 
wardness, by beating and kicking the impassive furniture. 
Wine, the discoverer of truth, sometimes brings out this 
universal failing in a manner equally signal and ludicrous. 
An infant being brought to christen to a country curate, at a 



176 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

time when lie was somewhat overcome by early potations, he 
was unable to find the service of Baptism in the book ; and, 
after fumbling for some time, peevishly exclaimed — " Con- 
found the brat ! what is the matter with it ? I never, in all 
my life, knew such a troublesome child to christen ! " 

MONASTERY — A house of ill-fame, where men are se- 
duced from their public duties, and fall naturally into guilt, 
from attempting to preserve an unnatural innocence. " It is 
as unreasonable for a man to go into a Carthusian convent for 
fear of being immoral, as for a man to cut off his hands for 
fear he should steal. When that is done, he has no longer any 
merit, for though it is out of his power to steal, he may all his 
life be a thief in his heart. All severity that does not tend to 
increase good or prevent evil, is idle." 

MONEY — A very good servant, but a bad master. It may 
be accused of injustice towards mankind, inasmuch as there 
are only a few who make false money, whereas money makes 
many men false. "We hate to be cheated, not so much for the 
value of the commodity, as because it makes others superior 
to ourselves. Being defrauded would be nothing were it not 
so galling to be outwitted. Crates, the Greek philosopher, left 
his money in the hands of a friend, with orders to pay it to 
his children in case they should be fools ; for, said he, if they 
are philosophers, they will not want it. Money is more indis- 
pensable now than it was then, but, still, a wise man will have 
it in his head rather than his heart. 

MORALITY — Keeping up appearances in this world, or 
becoming suddenly devout when we imagine that we may be 
shortly summoned to appear in the next. 

MORAL CHOLERA—" It is easier," says St. Gregory 
Nazianzen, " to contract the vices of others than to impart to 
them our own virtues ; just as it is easier to catch their diseases 
than to communicate to them our own good health." * 

Facilius est vitium contrahere quam virtutem impertire ; quem-admodum 
facilius est morbo alieno inflci, quam sanitatem largiri. 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 177 

MOTHERS — Four good mothers have given birth to four 
bad daughters : — Truth has produced hatred ; Success, pride ; 
Security, danger ; Familiarity, contempt. And, on the con- 
trary, four bad mothers have produced as many good daughters, 
for Astronomy is the offspring of astrology ; Chemistry, of 
alchemy ; Freedom, of oppression ; Patience, of long-suffering. 

MOUNTAINEERS — are rarely conquered, not so much on 
account of the facility for defence afforded by their craggy 
heights as from their hardier habits and greater patriotism. 
In the rich lowlands, art becomes the principal pursuit ; art 
leads to riches and luxury, and these to enervation and subjec- 
tion. On the high and barren places, man's occupations render 
him more conversant with nature, an intercourse which in- 
separably attaches him to " the mountain nymph — sweet 
Liberty." When in danger of being worsted, Highlanders are 
renovated, like Antaeus, by a touch of their native earth ; and 
so might we, when attacked by the cares and sickliness of 
money-getting and money-spending, if we would only quit our 
crowded cities, take a walk in the fields, and touch the earth. 
"When the leafless and embittering metropolis turns our moral 
honey into gall, we may always reverse the process by straying 
amid the flowers in the country. 

MOUTH — A useless instrument to some people, in its 
capacity, by the organs of speech, of rendering ideas audible ; 
but of special service to them in its other capacity of rendering 
victuals invisible. 

MUSES — The — Nine blue-stocking old maids, who seem 
to have understood all arts except that of getting husbands, 
unless their celibacy may be attributed to their want of 
marriage portions. These venerable young ladies are loudly 
and frequently invoked by poetasters, writers in albums and 
annuals, and other scribblers ; but, like Mungo in the farce, 
each of them replies, " Massa, massa ! — the more you call the 
more me won't come." One of our tourists, at Paris, observ- 
ing that there were only statues of eight muses on the Opera 
8* 



178 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

House, which was then incomplete, inquired of a laboring 
mason what had become of the ninth. " Monsieur, je ne vous 
dirois pas" replied the man ; — " mais probablement elle s 1 amuse 
avec Apollonf" An English operative would hardly have 
given such an answer. A gentleman once expressed his sur- 
prise that in so rich a literary country as England the Muses 
should not attain their due honors. " Impossible ! " cried a 
whist-playing old lady : " They are nine, and of course cannot 
reckon honors." 

MUSIC — " Music, like a man himself, derives all its dignity 
from its subornation to a loftier and more spiritual power. 
"When, divorcing itself from poetry, it first sought to be a 
principle instead of an accessory, to attach more importance to 
a sound than to a thought, to supersede sentiment by skill, to 
become, in short, man's playfellow, rather than his assistant 
teacher, a sensual instead of an intellectual gratification, its 
corruption, or at least its application to less ennobling pur- 
poses, had already commenced. As the art of music, strictly 
so called, was more assiduously cultivated, as it became more 
and more perplexed with complicated intricacies, only under- 
stood by a few, and less and less an exponent of the simple 
feelings and sentiments that are intelligible to all, it may be 
said to have lost in general utility and value, what it gained 
in science, and to have been gradually dissolving that union 
between sound and sense, which imparted to it its chief interest 
and influence." 

So entirely do I agree with the writer from whom the 
above extract is taken, that I have often rode back after a 
morning concert, to my residence in the country, that I might 
enjoy the superior pleasures of natural music. It was upon 
such an occasion, while strolling in the fields, that my thoughts 
involuntarily arranged themselves, as the novelists say, into 
the following stanzas : 



There's a charm and zest when the singer thrills 
The throbbing breast with his dulcet trills, 
And a joy more rare than the sweetest air 
Art ever combined, 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 179 

"When the poet enhances, 
By beautiful fancies, 
The strain, and entrances 
Both ear and mind. 
The triumph, music ! is ne'er complete, 
Till the pleasures of sense and of intellect meet. 

ii. 

Delights like these, to the poor unknown, 
Are reserved for the rich and great alone, 
In diamonds and plumes, who fill the rooms 

Of some grand abode, 
And think that a guinea, 
To hear Paginini, 
Or warbling Eubini, 

Is well bestow'd ; 
Since then, only then, they the pleasure share 
Of science, voice, instrument— equally rare. 



But the peasant at home, in gratuitous boon, 
Has an opera dome and orchestral saloon, 
"With melody gay from the peep of day 

Until evening dim ; 
"Whenever frequented, 
"With flowers it is scented, 
It seems all invented 

And painted by him, 
"Who suspended its blazing lamps on high, 
And its ceiling formed of the azure sky. 



Oh ! what can compare with the concert sublime, 
"When waters, earth, air, all in symphony chime ? 
The wind, herds, and bees, with the rustle of trees, 

Varied music prolong; 
On the spray as it swingeth, 
Each bird sweetly singeth, 
The sky-lark down flingeth 

A torrent of song — 
Till the transports of music, devotion, and love, 
"Waft the rapturous soul to the regions above. 

MUSICIANS — Machines for producing sounds; human 
instruments, generally so completely absorbed by their own 
art, that they are either ignorant of all others, or undervalue 
them. In a company at Vienna, where the conversation was 



180 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

nearly engrossed by the praises of Goethe, Catalini exclaimed, 
with great naivete, "Who is this Goethe? I have never 
heard any of his music ! " A poor German composer being 
introduced to Mozart, whom he considered the greatest man in 
the world, was so overcome with awe, that he dared not lift 
his eyes from the ground, but remained, for some time, stam- 
mering, " Ah, Imperial Majesty ! Ah, Imperial Majesty ! " 
In the same spirit Cafarielli, when told that Farinelli had been 
made a sort of Prime Minister in Spain, replied, " No man 
deserved it better, for his voice is absolutely unrivalled." 

MYSTERY — To him who has been sated and disappointed 
by the actual and the intelligible, there is a profound charm 
in the unattainable and the inscrutable. Infants stretch out 
their hands for the moon ; children delight in puzzles and 
riddles, even when they cannot discover their solution ; and 
the children of a larger growth desire no better employment 
than to follow their example, however it may lead them astray. 
The mystery of the Egyptian hieroglyphics was a frequent 
source of idolatry ; the type being taken for the prototype, 
until leeks and onions received the homage originally meant 
for their divine Giver. At which we need the less wonder, if 
we remember the confession of the pious Baxter, that, in order 
to awaken an interest in his congregation, he made it a rule, 
in every sermon, to say something that was above their 
capacity. 

There is a glorious epoch of our existence, wherein the 
comprehensible appears common and insipid, and in abandon- 
ing ourselves to the enthusiasm of imagination, we attain a 
middle state between despair and deification — a beatific ecstasy, 
when the spirit longs to fly upward — when the finite yearns 
for the infinite, the limited in intellect for the omniscient, the 
helpless for the omnipotent, the real for the impossible. 
Thus to flutter above the world, on the extended wings of fan- 
cy, is to be half a deity. And yet the forward-springing and 
ardent mind, which, running ahead of its contemporaries, 
stands upon the forehead of the age to come, only renders 
itself the more conspicuous mark for obloquy and assault. Like 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 181 

a Shrovetide cock, tethered to the earth, it can but partially 
raise itself, when it again sinks down, amid the sticks and 
stones of its cruel persecutors. 

NAMES — The character of different eras may, to a certain 
extent, be discovered by the various ways in which our ambi- 
tious nobility, aud others, have endeavored to achieve an en- 
during celebrity. "When chivalry was the rage, they gave their 
names to new inventions in arms and armor : now-a-days, they 
court notoriety by standing godfathers to some new fashions 
in clothes and cookery, and eclipsing all competitors in their 
coats, cabs, and castors. A ducal Campbell, whose ancestors 
were always spilling hot blood, endeavors to win celebrity in 
another way, by inventing an Argyle for preserving hot gravy ; 
a Sandwich embalms his name between two slices of bread and 
ham ; a Pembroke immortalizes himself in a table ; a Skel- 
mersdale goes down to future ages, like an Egyptian divinity, 
in a chair ; a Standish, surpassing the bottle conjuror, creeps 
into an inkstand, by which means " he still keeps his memory 
black in our souls ; " a Stanhope expects to be wheeled down 
to posterity, by harnessing his name to a gig of a peculiar con- 
struction ; a Petersham, hitting upon the easiest device by 
which he could prove to after ages that he wore a head, gives 
his title to a hat. Another nobleman, clarum et venerabile 
nomen, one who was said to have driven all the tailors into 
the suburbs, by compelling them to live on the skirts of the 
town, wraps up his name in the mummy-cloth of a Spencer, 
and secures a long-enduring fame by inventing a short coat. 

It is not generally known, that names may be affected, and 
even completely changed, by the state of the weather. Such, 
however, is unquestionably the case. The late Mr. Suet, the 
actor, going once to dine about twenty miles from London, and 
being only able to get an outside place on the coach, arrived 
in such a bedraggled state from an incessant rain, and so 
muffled up in greatcoats and pocket-handkerchiefs, that his 
friend inquired, doubtingly — " Are you Suet ? " — " No ! " 
replied the wag — " I'm dripping ! " 



182 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

Contracting a name sometimes lengthens the idea. Kean 
mentions an actor of the name of Lancaster, whom his com- 
rades usually called Lanky, for shortness. 

NOBLEMAN" — One who is indebted to his ancestors for a 
name and an estate, and sometimes to himself for being un- 
worthy of both. It was said of an accomplished and amiable 
earl, who was weak enough to be always boasting his title and 
his birth — " "What a pity he is a nobleman; he really deserves 
to have been born a commoner." 

NONSENSE — Sense that happens to differ from our own, 
supposing that we have any. If matter and mind, blending 
together in two incoherent substances, form the connecting 
link that separates physics from metaphysics, the real from the 
imaginary, and the visible from the unapparent, it follows as a 
precursive corollary, that the learned comments of the scholiasts, 
the dogmas of theologians, and the elaborate treatises of the 
Byzantine historians, can never be recognized as evidences of 
a foregone conclusion. Statistics and algebra, as well as logic 
and analogy, equally rebut the inference that in a case of so 
complicated a nature, the deposition of a mere functionary 
can be received as the spontaneous evidence of a compulsory 
principal. Oases may doubtless arise, where legal deductions, 
drawn from federal rather than from feudal institutes, will vary 
the superstructure upon which the whole theory was based ; but 
in the present instance, such objections must be deemed rather 
captious than analytical. On the whole it is presumed that the 
reader who has carefully perused and reconsidered our argu- 
ments, will be at little loss to understand the nature of the word, 
of which we have written this clear and explanatory definition. 
Should he, however, not be satisfied, he is referred to Voltaire's 
Galimathias, beginning " Unjour quHl faisoit nuit," &c. 

NON SEQUITUK — A grammatical Adam, being a relative 
without an ante-cedent : — something that is apropos to nothing, 
and comes after without following from. Of this figure there 
are various sorts ; but the most common form is putting the 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 183 

cart before the horse, or taking the effect for the cause. The 
industrious, prudent, and enlightened people of this country have 
thriven and grown great and rich, not always in consequence of 
good, hut in spite of bad government. Their native shrewdness 
and energy have enabled them to triumph over impediments, 
political, fiscal, and commercial, which would have completely 
crushed a less active and enterprising nation. When, there- 
fore, they are desired to reverence the misgoverned and the 
unreformed institutions, to which alone they are told to con- 
sider themselves indebted for all the advantages they enjoy, one 
cannot help recalling the non sequitur of the Carmelite friar, 
who instanced as a striking proof of the superintendence and 
goodness of Providence, that it almost invariably made a river 
run completely through the middle of every large city. Some- 
what akin to this instance of naivete was the reply of the 
Birmingham boy, who being asked whether some shillings, 
which he tendered at a shop, were good, answered with great 
simplicity, " Ay, that they be, for I seed father make 'em all 
this morning." 

NOVELIST — An autocrat of tremendous power. If four 
or five men are in a room, and show a disposition to break the 
peace, no human magistrate (not even Mr. Justice Bayley) could 
do more than bind them over to keep the peace, and commit 
them if they refused. But the writer of the novel stands with 
a pen in his hand, and can run any'of them through the body, 
— can knock down any one individual, and keep the others 
upon their legs ; or, like the last scene in the first tragedy 
written by a young man of genius, can put them all to death. 
Now, an author possessing such extraordinary privileges, 
should not suffer his hero to have a black eye, or to be pulled 
by the nose. The Iliad would never have come down to these 
times if Agamemnon had given Achilles a box on the ear. 
We should have trembled for the ^Eneid, if any Tyrian noble- 
man had kicked the pious iEneas in the 4th book. iEneas may 
have deserved it ; but he could not have founded the Koman 
Empire after so distressing an accident. 



184 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

NOVELTY — "What we recover from oblivion. "We can 
fish little out of the river Lethe that has not first been thrown 
into it. The world of discovery goes round without advancing, 
like a squirrel in its cage, and the revolution of one century 
differs but little from that of its predecessors. New performers 
mount the stage, but the piece and its accompaniments remain 
pretty much the same. Trumpets and taxes are the charac- 
teristics of the present era. No security without immense 
standing armies, no army without pay, no pay without taxes. 
It is a grievance which we cannot avoid, and of which, there- 
fore, it were as well to say nothing ; but if Tacitus is not silent 
on the subject, who can be ? " Neque quies gentium," says that 
historian, " sine armis, neque arma sine stipendiis, neque 
stipendia sine tributis haberi queunt" 

In the two extremes of life we have the most acute sense of 
novelty. To the boy all is new : to the old man, when this world 
no longer offers variety or change, is presented the most stimu- 
lating of all novelties — the contemplation of a new existence. 

Shakspeare u exhausted worlds, and then imagined new ; " 
but this is a privilege conceded to none but the chosen sons of 
genius. Common writers can only become original, when 
they have exhausted nature, by becoming unnatural. Like a 
mountebank at a fair, they surprise our attention by their 
extravagance, but they cannot keep it. We shrug our shoul- 
ders, and forget them. Many are the writers, nevertheless, 
who prefer a momentary fool's cap to a distant laurel. 

NOVEMBER — The period at which most Englishmen take 
leave of the sun for nine months, and not a few of them for 
ever. A demure Scottish lady having been introduced to the 
Persian ambassador when in London, exclaimed with an in- 
credulous air, " Is it possible that ye are such idolaters in Persia 
as to worship the sun ? " " Yes, madam," was the reply, u and 
so you would in England, if you ever saw him." 

OATH — Legal — Making the awful and infinite Deity a party 
to all the trivial and vulgar impertinences of human life : an act 
of profanation equally required from a church-warden and an 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 185 

archbishop, from a petty constable and the chief justice of Eng- 
land " Let the law," says Paley, " continue its own functions, if 
they be thought requisite ; but let it spare the solemnity of an 
oath, and, where it is necessary, from the want of something 
better to depend upon, to accept a man's word or own account, 
let it annex to prevarication penalties proportionable to the 
public consequence of the offence." 

Where they are made a test of religious belief, for the 
purpose of excluding any class of our fellow-subjects from their 
civil rights, oaths, being equally opposed to Christianity, 
policy, and justice, ought to be totally and finally abolished. 
He who first devised the oath of abjuration, profligately boasted 
that he had framed a test which should " damn one half of 
the nation, and starve the other ;" — a vaunt well worth the 
consideration of those who have placed themselves within the 
first clause of his prophecy. 

To the utterance of oaths, as execrations, a practice equally 
hateful for its blasphemy and vulgarity, there seems to be 
little other inducement than its gratuitous sinfulness, since it 
communicates no pleasure, and removes no uneasiness, neither 
elevates the speaker, nor depresses the hearer. " Go," said 
Prince Henry, the son of James I., when one of his courtiers 
swore bitterly at being disappointed of a tennis match — " Go I 
all the pleasures of earth are not worth a single oath." 

OBEDIENCE — Military — must be implicit and unreason- 
ing. " Sir," said the Duke of Wellington to an officer of 
engineers, who urged the impossibility of executing the direc- 
tions he had received, " I do not ask your opinion ; I gave you 
my orders, and I expect them to be obeyed." It might have 
been difficult, however, to yield a literal obedience to the 
adjutant of a volunteer corps, who, being doubtful whether he 
had distributed muskets to all the men, cried out — " All you 
that are without arms will please to hold up your hands." 

ODORS — Bad — The silent voice of nature, made audible 
by the nose. The worst may, in some degree, be sweetened to 
our sense by a recollection of the important part they perform 



186 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

in the economy of the world. Those emitted by dead ani- 
mals, attract birds and beasts of prey from an almost incredible 
distance, who not only soon remove the nuisance, but convert it 
into new life, beauty, and enjoyment. Should no such resource 
be at hand, as is "often the case in inhabited countries, the per- 
nicious effluvia disengaged from these decaying substances, occa- 
sion them to be quickly buried in the ground, where their 
organized forms are resolved into chemical constituents, and they 
are fitted to become the food of vegetables. The noxious gas 
is converted into the aroma of the flower, and that which 
threatened to poison the air, affords nourishment and delight 
to man and beast. Animals are thus converted into plants, 
and plants again become animals ; — change of form and not 
extinction — or, rather, destruction for the sake of reproduction, 
being the system of nature. Pulverized human bones are now 
largely imported into England for manure, and the corn thus 
raised will again be eventually reconverted into human bones. 

OLD AGE — need not necessarily be felt in the mind, as in 
the body ; time's current may wear wrinkles in the face that 
shall not reach the heart : there is no inevitable decrepitude or 
senility of the spirit, when its tegument feels the touches of 
decay. "We sometimes talk of men falling into their second 
childhood, when we should rather say that they have never 
emerged from their first, but have always been in an intellec- 
tual nonage. Vigorous minds very rarely sink into imbecility, 
even in extreme age. Time seems rather to drag them back- 
wards to their youth, than forwards towards senility. Like the 
Glastonbury thorn, they flower in the Christmas of their days. 
Hear how beautifully the venerable Goethe, in the Dedication to 
the first part of Faust, abandons himself to this Palingenesia. 

" Ye approach again, ye shadowy shapes, which once, in 
the morning of life, presented yourselves to my troubled view ! 
Shall I try, this time, to hold you fast ? Do I feel my heart 
still inclined towards that delusion ? Ye press forward ! well 
then, ye may hold dominion over me as ye arise around out of 
vapor and mist. My bosom feels youthfully agitated by the 
magic breath which atmospheres your train. 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 187 

" Ye bring with you the images of happy days, and many 
loved shades arise ; like to an old, half-expired tradition, rises 
First-love with Friendship in its company. The pang is 
renewed ; the plaint repeats the labyrinthine, mazy conrse of 
life, and names the dear ones who, cheated of fair hours by 
fortune, have vanished away before me. 

" They hear not the following lays — the souls to whom I 
sang the first. Dispersed is the friendly throng — the first echo, 
alas, has died away ! My sorrow voices itself to the stranger 
many : then; very applause makes my heart sick ; and all that 
in other days rejoiced in my song, if still living, stray scattered 
through the world. 

" And a yearning, long unfelt, for that quiet, pensive Spirit- 
realm seizes me. 'Tis hovering even now, in half-formed tones, 
my lisping lay, like the iEolian harp. A tremor seizes me : 
tear follows tear ; the austere heart feels itself growing mild 
and soft. What I have, I see as in the distance ; and what is 
gone becomes a reality to me." 

"What a cordial is this apocalypse of youth to all " grave and 
reverend Seniors !" — Why should any of us doubt that the 
mind may be progressive, even when the body loses ground ? 
If we are wiser to-day than yesterday, what is to prevent our 
being wiser to-morrow than to-day ? — Women rarely die during 
pregnancy ; and while the mind can be made to conceive and 
bear children, we may be assured that nature means to preserve 
its full vitality and power. 

Privation of friends by death is the greatest trial of old 
age ; for, though new ones may succeed to then* places, they 
cannot replace them. For this, however, as for all other 
sorrows, there is a consolation. When we are left behind, and 
feel as exiles upon earth, we are reconciled to the idea of quit- 
ting it, and yearn for that future home, where we shall be 
united to our predecessors, and whither our survivors will 
follow us. 

Old age is still comparative, and one man may be younger 
at eighty than another at forty. " Ah ! madam !" exclaimed 
the patriarch Fontenelle, when talking to a young and beauti- 
ful woman — " if I were but fourscore again !" 



188 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

How powerful is sympathy ! the mere mention of this anec- 
dote has sent me courting to the muse, and has thrown into 
verse what I had intended further to say on the subject of 



OLD AGE. 

Yes, I am old ;— my strength declines, 
And wrinkles tell the touch of time, 

Yet might I fancy these the signs 
Not of decay, but manhood's prime ; 

For all within is young and glowing, 

Spite of old age's outward showing. 

Yes, I am old ; — the ball, the song, 
The turf, the gun, no more allure ; 

I shun the gay and gilded throng ; 
Yet, ah ! how far more sweet and pure 

Home's tranquil joys, and mental treasures, 

Than dissipation's proudest pleasures ! 

Yes, I am old ; — Ambition's call, — 
Fame, wealth, distinction's keen pursuit, 

That once could charm and cheat me — all 
Are now detected, passive, mute. 

Thank God ! the passions and their riot 

Are barter'd for content and quiet. 

Yes, I am old ;— but as I press 
The vale of years with willing feet, 

Still do I find life's sorrows less, 
And all its hallow'd joys more sweet ; 

Since Time, for every rose he snatches, 

Takes fifty thorns with all their scratches. 

My wife— God bless her ! is as dear 
As when I plighted first my truth ; 

I feel, in every child's career, 
The joys of renovated youth : 

And as to Nature — I behold her 

With fresh delight as I grow older. 

Yes, I am old ;— and death hath ta'en 
Full many a friend, to memory dear ; 

Yet, when I die, 'twill soothe the pain 
Of quitting my survivors here, 

To think how all will be delighted, 

When in the skies again united 1 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 189 

Yes, I am old ;— experience now, 
That best of guides, hath, made me sage, 

And thus instructed, I avow 
My firm conviction, that old age, 

Of all our various terms of living, 

Deserves the warmest, best thanksgiving 1 

" OLD MEN," — says Kochefoucauld, " like to give good 
advice, as a consolation for being no longer in a condition to 
give a bad example." May we not turn the dictum of the 
writer against himself, and infer that he gave us all his bad 
advice from a contrary feeling? Well may the portrait be 
dark, when the misanthrope draws from himself ! 

OMEN — The imaginary language of heaven speaking by 
signs. An oracle is the same, speaking by human tongues, 
but both have now become dumb. If we wish to know who 
believes in this Latin word, we must get our Latin answer by 
reading it backwards. 

OPINION — A capricious tyrant to which many a freeborn 
man willingly binds himself a slave. Deeming it of much 
more importance to be valued than valuable — holding opin- 
ion to be worthier than worth, we had rather stand well in the 
estimation of others, even of those whom we do not esteem, 
than of ourselves. This is, indeed, the 

"Meanness that soars, and pride that licks the dust'" 

The greater the importance we attach to our opinions, the 
greater our intolerance, which is wrong, even when we are 
right, and doubly so when we are in error ; so that persecu- 
tion for opinion's sake, can never be justifiable. Our own 
experience might teach us better, for every man has differed, 
at various times, from himself, as much as he ever has differed 
at any one time from others. 

Suffering others to think for us, when Heaven has supplied 
us with reason and a conscience for the express purpose of 
enabling us to think for ourselves, is the great fountain of all 
human error. " There cannot," says Locke, " be a more dan- 



190 THE Tm TRUMPET. 

gerous thing to rely on than the opinion of others, nor more 
likely to mislead one ; since there is much more falsehood and 
error among men than truth and knowledge ; and if the opin- 
ions and persuasions of others, whom we know and think well 
of, be a ground of assent, men have reason to be heathens in 
Japan, Mahometans in Turkey, Papists in Spain, Protestants in 
England, and Lutherans in- Sweden."* 

Were a whole nation to start upon a new career of educar 
tion, with mature faculties, and minds free from preposses- 
sions or prejudices, how much would be quickly abandoned 
that is now most stubbornly cherished! If we have many 
opinions, in our present state, that have once been proscribed, 
it is presumable that we cling to many more which future 
generations will discard. The world is yet in its boyhood — 
perhaps in its infancy ; and our fancied wisdom is but the bab- 
ble of the nursery. However quickly we may take up an 
error, we abandon it slowly. As a man often feels a pain in 
the leg that has been long amputated, so does he frequently 
yearn towards an opinion after it has been cut off from his 
mind, — so true is it that 

"He that's convinced against his will, 
Is of the same opinion still." 

So wedded are some people to their own notions, that they 
will not have any persons for friends, or even for servants, 

who do not entertain similar views. Lord L makes a 

point of strictly cross-questioning his domestics, as to their 
religious and political faith, before he engages them. "While 
residing on his Irish estates, a groom presented himself to be 
hired, resolving, beforehand, not to compromise himself by 
any inconsiderate replies. " What are your opinions ? " was 
the peer's first demand. "Indeed, then, your lordship's 
honor ! I have just none at all at all." " Not any ! nonsense ! 
— you must have some, and I insist upon knowing them." 
" Why, then, your honor's glory, they are for all the world 
just the same as your lordship's." " Then you can have no 

* On the Human Understanding, 1. iv. c. xv. 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 191 

objection to state them, and to confess frankly what is your 
way of thinking." " Och ! and is it my way of thinking you 
mane by my opinions? — Why, then, I am exactly the same 
way of thinking as Pat Sullivan, your honor's gamekeeper, 
for, says he to me, as I was coming up stairs, Murphy, says 
he, I'm thinking you'll never be paying me the two-and- 
twenty shillings I lent you, last Christmas was a twelvemonth. 
Faith! says I, Pat Sullivan! I'm quite of your way of 
thinking." 

OPTIMISM — A devout conviction that, under the govern- 
ment of a benevolent and all-powerful God, every thing con- 
duces ultimately to the best in the world he has created, and 
that mankind, the constant objects of his paternal care, are in 
a perpetual state of improvement, and increased happiness. 
This is a great and consoling principle, the summary of all 
religion and all philosophy, the reconciler of all misgivings, 
the source of all comfort and consolation. To believe in it, is 
to realize its truth, so far as we are individually concerned ; 
and indeed it will mainly depend upon ourselves, whether or 
not every thing shall be for the best. Let us cling to the 
moral of Parnell's hermit, rather than suffer our confidence in 
the divine goodness to be staggered by the farcical exaggera- 
tions of Voltaire's Oandide. If the theory of the former be a 
delusion, it is, at least, a delightful one ; and, for my own 
part — "malim cum Platone err are, quam cum aliis recti 
sentire " — where the error is of so consolatory and elevating a 
description. 

An optimist may be wrong, but presumption and religion 
are in his favor ; nor can we directly pronounce any thing to 
be for final evil, until the end of all things has arrived, and 
the whole scheme of creation is revealed to us. " Does not 
every architect complain of the injustice of criticizing a build- 
ing before it is half finished ? — Yet, who can tell what volume 
of the creation we are in at present, or what point the struc- 
ture of our moral fabric has attained ? — Whilst we are all in a 
vessel that is sailing under sealed orders, we shall do well to 
confide implicitly in our government and captain." 



192 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 



% 



ORATORY — The power to talk people out of their sober 
and matured opinions. Oratory is a dangerous talent. Few 
men are fit to be trusted with it, for few are able to resist the 
temptations to use it for their own ends. True orators are 
more scarce than is generally imagined. Rank is oftener 
found than eloquence. The genuine orator is inspired, and 
does not need a prompter — as did that notorious " second-rate 
blunderer," Sir Frederick Flood. He had a droll habit, of 
which he could never break himself; whenever a person at 
his back whispered or suggested any thing to him while he 
was speaking in public, he without a moment's reflection invol- 
untarily repeated the suggestion literatim. Sir Frederick was 
once making a long speech in the Irish parliament, lauding the 
transcendent' merits of the "Wexford magistracy. As he was 
closing his turgid oration, by. declaring that "the said magis- 
tracy ought to receive some signal mark of the lord lieutenant's 
favor," John Egan, who was rather mellow, and sitting behind 
him, jocularly whispered, "And be whipped at the cart's tail." 
— "And be whipped at the cart's tail !" repeated Sir Frederick 
unconsciously, amid uproarious laughter from the whole 
house. 

ORIGINALITY — Unconscious or undetected imitation. 
Even Seneca complains, that the ancients had compelled him 
to borrow from them what they would have taken from him, 
had he been lucky enough to have preceded them. " Every 
one of my writings," says Goethe, in the same candid spirit, 
" has been furnished to me by a thousand different persons, a 
thousand different things : the learned and the ignorant, the 
wise and the foolish, infancy and age, have come in turn, 
generally without having the least suspicion of it, to bring me 
the offering of their thoughts, their faculties, their experience : 
often have they sowed the harvest I have reaped. My work 
is that of an aggregation of human beings, taken from the 
whole of nature ; it bears the name of Goethe." 

It is in the power of any writer to be original, by deserting 
nature, and seeking the quaint and the fantastical ; but literary 
monsters, like all others, are generally short-lived. " When I 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 193 

was a young man," says Goldsmith, " being anxious to distin- 
guish myself, I was perpetually starting new propositions ; but 
I soon gave this over, for I found that generally what was new 
was false.' 1 Strictly speaking, we may be original, without 
being new : our thoughts may be our own, and yet common- 
place. 

P's and Q's — The origin of the phrase " Mind your P's and 
Q's " is not generally known. In ale-houses, where chalk scores 
were formerly marked upon the wall, or behind the door of 
the tap-room, it was customary to put these initial letters at 
the head of every man's account, to show the number of pints 
and quarts for which he was in arrears ; and we may presume 
many a friendly rustic to have tapped his neighbor on the 
shoulder, when he was indulging too freely in his potations, 
and to have exclaimed, as he pointed to the score, " Giles ! 
Giles ! mind your P's and Q's." 

"When Toby, the learned pig, was in the zenith of his pop- 
ularity, a theatrical wag, who attended the performance, 
maliciously set before him some peas ; a temptation which the 
animal could not resist, and which immediately occasioned 
him to lose his cue. The pig exhibitor remonstrated with the 
author of the mischief on the unfairness of what he had done, 
when he replied, that his only wish was, to see whether Toby 
knew his P's from his Q's. 

PANACEA — Advektised — See Poison. There would be 
little comfort for the sick, either in body or mind, were there 
any truth in the averment, that philosophy, like medicine, has 
plenty of drugs and quack medicines, but few remedies, and 
hardly any specifics. So far from admitting this discouraging 
statement, a panacea may be prescribed, which, under ordinary 
circumstances, will generally prevent, and rarely fail to alle- 
viate, most of the e'vils that flesh is heir to. The following 
are the simple ingredients : — occupation for the mind, exer- 
cise for the body, temperance and virtue for the sake of both. 
This is the magnum arcanum of health and happiness. Half 
of our illness and misery arises from the perversion of that 
9 



194 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

reason which was given to ns as a protection against both. 
"We are led astray by our guide, and poisoned by our physician. 

PARENT — It may be doubted, whether a man can fully 
appreciate the mysterious properties, and the thought-elevating 
dignity of his nature, until, by becoming a parent, he feels 
himself to be a creator as well as a creature. The childless 
man passes through life like an arrow through the air, leaving 
nothing behind that may mark his flight. A tombstone, stat- 
ing that they were born and died, is the sole brief evidence of 
existence, which the mass of bachelors can transmit to the 
succeeding generation. But the father feels that he belongs 
to the future, as well as the present ; he has, perhaps, become 
a permanent part and parcel of this majestical world " till the 
great globe dissolve ; for his descendants may not impossibly 
make discoveries, or effect reforms, that shall influence the 
destiny of the whole human race, and thus immortalize their 
name. These may be baseless dreams, fond and doating rev- 
eries, but, like all the aspirations connected with our offspring, 
they serve to soothe and meliorate the heart, while they send 
the delighted spirit into the future, wreathed with laurels, and 
mounted upon a triumphal car of glorious hopes. 

PARTY-SPIRIT— A species of mental vitriol, which we 
bottle up in our bosoms, that we may squirt it against others ; 
but which, in the mean time, irritates, corrodes, and poisons 
our own hearts. Personality and invective are not only proofs 
of a bad argument, but of a bad arguer ; for politeness is per- 
fectly compatible with wit and logic, while it enhances the 
triumph of both. By a union of courtesy and talent, an 
adversary may be made to grace his own defeat, as the sandal 
tree perfumes the hatchet that cuts it down. Caesar's soldiers 
fought none the worse for being scented with unguents, nor 
will any combatant be weakened by moral suavity. The bit- 
terness of political pamphlets, and newspaper writing, so far 
from acting as a tonic, debilitates and dishonors them. A 
furious pamphleteer, on being reproached with his unsparing 
acrimony, exclaimed, " Burke, and Curran, and Grattan, have 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 195 

written thus, as well as I." " Ay," said his friend, " but have 
you written thus as well as they?" Political writers and 
orators must not mistake the rage, the mouthing, and the con- 
tortions of the Sibyl for her inspiration. 

It is a melancholy thing to see a man, clothed in soft rai- 
ment, lodged in a public palace, endowed with a rich portion 
of the product of other men's industry, using all the influence 
of his splendid situation, however conscientiously, to deepen 
the ignorance, and inflame the fury, of his fellow-creatures. 
These are the miserable results of that policy which has been 
so frequently pursued for these fifty years past, of placing men 
of mean, or middling abilities, in high stations. 

PASSIONS — Were it not for the salutary agitation of the 
passions, the waters of life would become dull, stagnant, and 
as unfit for all vital purposes as those of the Dead Sea. It 
should be equally our object to guard against those tempests 
and overflowings which may entail mischief, either upon our- 
selves or others ; and to avoid that drowsy calm, of which the 
sluggishness and inertia are inevitably hostile to the health 
and spirits. In the voyage of life, we should imitate the an- 
cient mariners, who, without losing sight of the earth, trusted 
to the heavenly signs for their guidance. Happy the man, 
the tide of whose passions, like that of the great ocean, is 
regulated by a light from above ! 

St. Evremond compares the passions to runaway horses, 
which you must tame by letting them have their run; a 
perilous experiment, in which the rider may break his neck. 
Much better to restrain and conquer them before they get 
head ; for if they do not obey, they will be sure to command, 
you. 

PASSIVE RESISTANCE— succeeding to that doctrine of 
passive obedience, which was once so strenuously inculcated, 
promises to be not le*ss efficient as a public weapon, than the 
helplessness of woman is often found to be in private life. This 
formidable, though negative power, may be compared to a snow- 
ball, — the more you push against it, the greater it becomes ; 



196 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

it continues giving way before you, until it finally comes to a 
stand still, conquers your strength, and defies your utmost 
endeavors to move it. 

PATRIOTISM — There is a cowardly kind much in vogue 
among the politicians of the present day, which is evidently 
copied from the upholsterer in Foote's farce, who sits up 
whole nights watching over the British constitution. 

PEN — The silent mouthpiece of the mind, which gives 
ubiquity and permanence to the evanescent thought of a 
moment. 

PERSECUTION — Disobeying the most solemn injunctions 
of Christianity, under the sham plea of upholding it. How 
admirable the humility of the spiritual persecutor, when he 
kindly condescends to patronize the Deity, to assist Omnis- 
cience with his counsels, and lend a helping hand to Omnipo- 
tence ! In such an attempt the failure is generally as signal 
as the folly, the cruelty, and the impiety ; for martyrs, like 
certain plants, spring up more stubbornly, the more you en- 
deavor to crush and trample them down. The rebound is 
always proportioned to the percussion, the recoil to the dis- 
charge. To conquer fanaticism you must tolerate it: the 
shuttlecock of religious difference soon falls to the ground, 
when there are no battledores to beat it backwards and for- 
wards. 

PESSIMISTS — Moral squinters, who, being incapable of a 
straightforward view, " imagine that penetration is evinced by 
universal suspicion and mistrust ; who hope, perhaps, to exalt 
themselves by degrading others ; who discredit every thing 
that is noble, believe all that is base ; who would persuade 
their hearers, that the pure wholesome temple of moral beauty 
and virtue is a lazar-house of noisome corruption and festering 
abomination. A more false and pestilent treason against 
human nature, a more impious profanation of the divinity of 
goodness that is within us, a more self-condemning calumny 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 197 

upon the world, it is not easy to conceive ; and yet, npon this 
paltry, mischievous basis, have weak-headed and bad-hearted 
men, in all ages, not only contrived to obtain a reputation for 
shrewdness and sagacity, but sometimes have been enabled to 
distress, with painful misgivings, those nobler spirits, who 
would wish to sympathize with fellow-creatures, in the ful- 
ness of love and charity, and to believe themselves surrounded 
with congenial hearts and kindred souls." 

PHILANTHROPY— was not ill-defined by Cicero, when 
he says, alluding to the purpose of man's creation — u Ad tuendos 
conservandosque homines, Jiominem natum esse. Homines Tiomi- 
num causa sunt generati, ut ipsi inter se alii aliis prodesse 
possint. Hominem, natures ooedientem, homini nocere non posse" 

Why was man made with wide-spreading arms, except, as 
Dryden beautifully supposes, 

" To satisfy a wide embrace ? " 

The only way we can evince our gratitude to our great 
Creator and Benefactor, for all that he has given us, is to be 
as useful as we can to his creatures, and " to love our neighbor 
as ourselves." 

" I fear," said a country curate to his flock, " when I ex- 
plained to you in my last charity sermon, that Philanthropy 
was the love of our species, you must have understood me to 
say specie, which may account for the smallness of the collec- 
tion. You will prove, I hope, by your present contributions, 
that you are no longer laboring under the same mistake." 

PHYSICIANS — always cherish a sneaking kindness for 
cooks, as more certain and regular purveyors of patients than 
plague and pestilence ; and there is this advantage in their 
advice, that no two of them agree, so that the taste of an 
invalid may always be accommodated. " Are you out of 
sorts," says Montaigne, " that your physician has denied you 
the enjoyment of wine, and of your favorite dishes ? — Be not 
uneasy ; apply to me, and I engage to find you one of equal 



198 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

credit, who shall put you under a regimen perfectly opposite 
to that settled by your own adviser." 

Blunt, and even rude, as he sometimes was, Abernethy 
would not have hazarded so unfeeling a speech as is recorded 
of Andrea Baccio, the celebrated Florentine physician. Being 
called on to attend a woman of quality, he felt her pulse, and 
asked her how old she was. — She told him, "About four 
score." "And how long would you live?" demanded the 
surly practitioner quitting her hand and making the best of 
his way out of the house. 

Physicians may well smile at the many jokes and malicious 
pleasantries of which they are the butt, for they must share 
the consciousness of their patients, that there is no greater 
benefactor to his species than the successful practitioner. No 
wonder that such men received divine honors in the olden 
times, since they seem to approximate to the attributes of the 
gods. — " Neque enim ulld alid re homines propius ad Beos 
accedunt, quam salutem hominibus dando" 

PHYSIOGNOMY— -Beading the handwriting of nature upon 
the human countenance. If a man's face, as it is pretended, 
be like that of a watch, which reveals without what it con- 
ceals within, silence itself is no security for our thoughts, for 
a dial tells the hour as well as a clock. If, in addition to this 
self-betrayal, the suggestion of Momus could be realized, and 
a window be placed in our bosoms, so that " he who runs 
may read," the best of us might well change color, for many 
a heart would look black when it was read. 

PHONOGRAPHY — as at present practised, is highly use- 
ful and very near perfection. Nevertheless little mistakes 
will now and then occur. A member of the House of Repre- 
sentatives was making a speech, in which he intimated that 
truth was much dearer to him than party, quoting the Latin, 
" Amicus Socrates, amicus Plato est, sed major Veritas " — " Soc- 
rates is my friend, Plato is my friend, but truth is much 
more my friend." This appeared the next day in the report 
as follows: "'I may cuss Socrates, I may cuss Plato,' said 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 199 

Major Veritas ! " The sounds were somewhat like, but then 
there was a little difference in the meaning. 

PIO-KEO — The most unpleasant of all parties of pleasure. 

If sick of home and luxuries, 

You want a new sensation, 
And sigh for the unwonted ease 

Of -^accommodation,— 
If you would taste, as amateur, 

And vagabond beginner, 
The painful pleasures of the poor, 

Get up a Pic-nic dinner. 

Presto ! 'tis done — away you start, 

All frolic, fun, and laughter, 
The servants and provision cart 

As gayly trotting after. 
The spot is reach'd, when all exclaim, 

With many a joyous antic, 
" How sweet a scene I— I'm glad we came I 

How rural— how romantic I " 

Pity the night was wet !— but what 

Care gypsies and carousers? 
So down upon the swamp you squat 

In porous Nankeen trousers. — 
Stick to what sticks to you— your seat, 

For thistles round you huddle, 
While nettles threaten legs and feet, 

If shifted from a puddle. 

Half starved with hunger— parch'd with thirst, 

All haste to spread the dishes, 
When lo ! 'tis found, the ale has burst 

Amid the loaves and fishes ; 
Over the pie, a sodden sop, 

The grasshoppers are skipping, 
Each roll's a sponge, each loaf a mop, 

And all the meat is dripping. — 

Bristling with broken glass, you find 

Some cakes among the bottles, 
Which those may eat who do not mind 

Excoriated throttles. 
The biscuits now are wiped and dried, 

When squalling voices utter, 
" Look ! look ! a toad has got astride * 

Our only pat of butter I " 



200 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

Tour solids in a liquid state, 

Tour cooling liquids heated, 
And every promised joy by fate 

Most fatally defeated ; 
All, save the serving men are sour'd, 

They smirk, the cunning sinners ! 
Having, before they came, devour'd 

Most comfortable dinners. 

Still you assume, in very spite, 

A grim and gloomy gladness, 
Pretend to laugh — affect delight — 

And scorn all show of sadness. — 
While thus you smile, but storm within, 

A storm without comes faster, 
And down descends in deaf ning din 

A deluge of disaster. 

'Tis sawe qui pent ; — the fruit dessert 

Is fruitlessly deserted, 
And homeward now you all revert, 

Dull, desolate, and dirtied, 
Each gruffly grumbling, as he eyes 

His soaked and sullen brother, 
" If these are Pic-nic pleasantries, 

Preserve me from another 1 " 



PLAGIARISTS— Purloiners, who filch the fruit that 
others have gathered, and then throw away the hasket. 

PLEASING ALL PARTIES— This hopeless attempt 
usually ends hy pleasing none, for time-servers neither serve 
themselves nor any one else. As the endeavor involves a 
contemptible compromise of principle, it is generally despised 
by the very parties whom we seek to conciliate. What opin- 
ion can we have of a man who has no opinion of his own ? 
A neutral, we can understand and respect ; but a Janusfaced 
double-dealer, who affects to belong to both sides, will not be 
tolerated by either. His fear of giving offence is the greatest 
of all offences. Of this, a ludicrous instance was afforded at 
the time of the riots, in 1780, when every one was obliged to 
chalk " No Popery " upon the wall of his house, in order to 
protect it from violence. Delphini, the clown, particularly 
anxious to win "golden opinions from all sorts of men," sinco 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 201 

his benefit was close at hand, scrawled upon his house, in 
large letters — " No Eeligion." 

PLEASURES— See "Will-o'-the-wisp. Some, like the hori- 
zon, recede perpetually, as we advance towards them ; others, 
like butterflies, are crushed by being caught. Pleasure unat- 
tained, is the hare which we hold in chase, cheered on by the 
ardor of competition, the exhilarating cry of the dogs — the 
shouts of the hunters — the echo of the horn — the ambition of 
being in at the death. Pleasure attained, is the same hare 
hanging up in the sportsman's larder, worthless, disregarded, 
despised, dead. 

The keenest pleasures of an unlawful nature are poisoned 
by a lurking self-reproach, ever rising up to hiss at us, like a 
snake amid the flowers — 



medio de fonte leporum, 



Surgit aliquid amari ; " 

while there is a secret consolation, even in the heaviest ca- 
lamity, if we feel that it has not been incurred by our own 
misconduct. Upon this subject, the great and golden rule is, 
so to enjoy present, as that they may not interfere with future, 
pleasures. Burns has happily compared sensual pleasure to 
snow that falls upon a river, 

" A moment white, then gone forever." 

POETRY — The music of thought conveyed to us in the 
music of language — the art of embalming intellectual beauty, 
a process which threatens to be speedily enrolled, together 
with the Egyptian method of immortalizing the body, among 
the sciences which are lost. 

The harmony of the works of nature is the visible poetry 
of the Almighty, emblazoned on the three-leaved book of 
earth, sea, and sky. 

If Hayley could talk even in his days, of " the cold blank 
booksellers' rhyme-freezing face," what would he say in ours, 
when we have seen Orabbe, Wordsworth, and Coleridge, con- 



202 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

demned to an involuntary silence ; Moore, the first lyrical 
writer of the age, " vir nulla non donandus laum," one whose 
very soul is poetry, driven to the ungenial toil of Biography ; 
and Southey, not only necessitated to waste his fine poetical 
talents and kindly feelings in the fierce arena of criticism and 
politics, but absolutely obliged to consult the public taste, or 
rather the total want of it, by discontinuing the Laureate 
odes. 

Absurd as it was to expect a rational answer from T. H., I 
ventured to ask' him how it came that all our best poets were 
obliged to write prose ? — "Because poetry is proscribed" was 
his reply. 

POETS — Merchants are counted shrewd men. A trader 
in the modern Athens being asked the character of one given to 
poetry, described him as " one of those men who have soar- 
ings after the indefinite, and divings after the unfathomable, 
but who never pay cash." 

POINT — One good one. So various are the estimates 
formed of us by our fellow-creatures, that there never, per- 
haps, existed an individual, however unpraiseworthy, who 
was not acknowledged to have one good point in his character, 
though it by no means follows that this admission is always 
to be taken as a compliment. A gentleman, travelling on a 
Sunday, was obliged to stop, in order to replace one of his 
horse's shoes. The farrier was at church ; but a villager sug- 
gested, that if he went on to Jem Harrison's forge he would 
probably be found at home. This proved to be true, when 
the rustic who had led the horse to the spot exclaimed — 
" Well, I must say that for Jem — for it is the only good point 
about him — he do never go to church ! " 

POLITENESS— of the person exhibits itself in elegance 
of manners, and a strict adherence to the conventional forms 
and courtesies of polished life. Politeness of the heart consists 
in an habitual benevolence, and an absence of selfishness in 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 203 

our intercourse with society of all classes. Each of these may 
exist without the other. 

POLITICIANS — Adyice to — There is only one principle 
of public conduct : Do what you think is right, and take -place 
and power as an accident. Upon any other plan office is shab- 
biness, labor, and sorrow. 

POMPOSITY — There is nothing pompous gentlemen are 
so much afraid of as a little humor. It is like the objection 
of certain cephalic animalculse to the use of small-tooth combs, 
— " Finger and thumb, precipitate powder, or any thing else 
you please ; but for Heaven's sake no small-tooth combs ! " 

POPULARITY— The brightness of a falling star,— the 
fleeting splendor of a rainbow, — the bubble that is sure to 
burst by its very inflation. The politician, who, in these 
lunatic times, hopes to adapt himself to all the changes of 
public opinion, should qualify for the task, by attempting to 
make a pair of stays for the moon, which assumes a new form 
and figure every night. 

POSSIBLE — In order to effect the utmost possible, we 
must be careful not to throw away our strength in straining 
after the impossible and the unattainable, lest we exemplify 
the fable of the dog and the shadow. " Search not into the 
things above thy strength." 

"Sors tua mortalis ; non est mortale quod optas." 

POSTHUMOUS GLORY— A revenue payable to our 
ghosts ; ^m ignis fatuus; an exhalation arising from the ashes 
and corruption of the body ; the glow-worm of the grave ; a 
Jack-o'-lantern, of which a skeleton is the Jack, and the lan- 
tern a dark one ; protracted oblivion ; the short twilight that 
survives the setting of the vital sun, and is presently quenched 
in the darkness of night. " Ashes to ashes, and dust to dust," 
may be said of our fame, as well as of our frame : one is 



204 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

buried very soon after the other. When the rattling earth is 
cast upon our coffin, it sends up a hollow sound, which, after 
a few faint echoes, dies, and is buried in oblivious silence. 
That fleeting noise is our posthumous renown. Living glory 
is the advantage of being known to those whom you don't 
know ; posthumous glory is enjoying a celebrity from which 
you can derive no enjoyment, and enabling every puppy in 
existence to feel his superiority over you by repeating the old 
dictum, that a living dog is better than a dead lion, or by 
quoting from Shakspeare — " I like not such grinning honors 
as Sir Walter hath ! " 

POSTS and PLACES— It was a complaint of D'Alembert, 
that men so completely exhausted their industry in canvassing 
for places, as to haVe none left for the performance of their 
duties. Query — Have public men improved in this respect 
since the days of D'Alembert ? 

POVERTY — To the generous-minded, it is the greatest 
evil of a narrow fortune that they must sometimes taste the 
humiliation of receiving, and can rarely enjoy the luxury of 
conferring benefits. None can feel for the poor so well as the 
poor, and none, therefore, can so well appreciate the painfull- 
ness of being unable to relieve the distress with which they 
so keenly sympathize. 

Eiches, it was once observed, only keep out the single evil 
of poverty. True ! was the reply — but how much good do 
they let in ! Whatever may be the talents of a poor man, 
they will not have their fair share of influence ; for few will 
respect the understanding that is of so little advantage to its 
owner, and still fewer is the number of those who will doubt 
the abilities that have made a fool rich. Nevertheless, there 
are many chances in favor of the sufferers under impecunio- 
sity ; for, if Necessity be the mother of Invention, Poverty is 
the father of Industry ; and the child of such parents has a 
much better prospect of achieving honors and distinction than 
the rich man's son. Chief Justice Kenyon once said to a 
wealthy friend, who asked his opinion as to the probable sue- 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 205 

cess of his son at the bar, " Let him spend his own fortune 
forthwith ; marry, and spend his wife's, and then he may be 
expected to apply with energy to his profession." 

PEACTICE — does not always make perfect. Cnrran, 
when told by his physician, that he seemed to cough with 
more difficulty, replied, " That is odd enough, for I have been 
practising all night." 

PRAISE — That which costs us nothing, and which we are, 
nevertheless, the most unwilling to bestow upon others, even 
where it is most due, though we sometimes claim it the more 
for ourselves, the less we deserve it ; not reflecting that the 
breath of self-eulogy soils the face of the speaker, even as the 
censer is dimmed by the smoke of its own perfume. 

"Which of us would desiderate the expressive silence recom- 
mended by Scaliger as the most appropriate compliment to 
Yirgil? u De Virgilio nunquam loquendum ; nam omnes 
omnium laudes superaV Few people thank you for praising 
the qualities they really possess; to win their hearts, you 
must eulogize those in which they are deficient. As this is 
the most subtle of all flattery, so is it the most acceptable. In 
general, we have little reason to be grateful to those who 
speak the strict truth of us, and we are the more bound to 
acknowledge the kindness of those who flatter us by agree- 
able falsehoods. Stratonice, the bald wife of Seleucus, gave six 
hundred crowns to a poet who extolled the beauty and pro- 
fusion of her hair. One thing I would counsel to authors — 
never to make any allusion to themselves. If from sheer 
modesty, they speak disparagingly of their own works, their 
averments are set down for gospel ; if they assume the smallest 
modicum of merit, their claim is cited as an instance of inor- 
dinate vanity. Silence is sapience. 

The best praise which you can bestow on an author, or an 
artist, is to show that you have* studied and understand his 
works. When Augustin Caracci pronounced a long discourse 
in honor of the Laocoon, all were astonished that his brother 
Annibal said nothing of that celebrated chef-d'oeuvre. Divining 



206 THE TIN TKUMPET. 

* 

their thoughts, the latter took a piece of chalk, and drew the 
group against the wall as accurately as if he had it before his 
eyes ; a silent panegyric, which no rhetoric could have sur- 
passed. 

" Our praise of beginners," says Eochefoucauld, " often 
proceeds from our envy of those who have already succeeded." 
This is a secret well known to critics ; but they do not seem 
to be aware that sincerely to praise merit is, in some degree, 
to share it. 

PRAYER— 

" Prayer highest soars when she most prostrate lies, 
And when she supplicates she storms the skies. 
Thus to gain heaven may seem an easy task, 
For what can be more easy than to ask ? 
Yet oft we do by sad experience find, 
That, clogged with earth, some prayers are left behind, 
And some like chaff blown off by every wind. 
To kneel is easy, to pronounce not hard, 
Then why are some petitioners debarr'd ? 
Hear what an ancient oracle declared : , 
Some sing their prayers, and some their prayers «ay, 
He's an Elias, who his prayers can pray. 
Eeader, remember, when you next repair 
To church or closet, this memoir of prayer." 

PRECEPT — without example, is like a waterman who 
looks one way and rows another. What avails the knowledge 
of good and evil, if we do what we ought to avoid, and avoid 
what we ought to do ? A direction post may point out the 
right road, without being obliged to follow it ; but human 
finger posts, especially teachers and preachers, have not the 
same privilege. "When a man's life gives the lie to his tongue, 
we naturally believe the former, rather than the latter. Phar- 
isaical professions are but as a tinkling cymbal ; we cannot 
listen patiently to the voice of the hypocrite, charm he never 
so wisely ; but there is a silent eloquence in the morality of a 
whole life, that is irresistibly. Precept and example, like the 
blades of a pair of scissors, are admirably adapted to their 
end, when conjoined : separated they lose the greater portion 
of iheir utility. Tertullian says, that even our writings blush 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 207 

when our actions do not correspond with them. Ought not 
this inconsistency rather to produce a contrary effect, and to 
prevent our writings from heing read ? 

He who teaches what he does not perform, may be com- 
pared to a sun-dial on the front of a house, which instructs 
the passenger, but not the tenant. " Equidem beato's puto" 
says Pliny, " quibus Deorum munere datum est, out facer e 
scribenda, aut legenda scribere ; beatissimos vere quibus utrim- 
que. Happy are they to whom the gods have given the 
power, either to perform actions worthy to be recorded, or to 
write things worthy to be read: happier still are they in 
whom both powers are united." 

PKECOCIOUS CHILDREN— whose early intellectual de- 
velopment is often the harbinger of a premature decay, may 
be compared to Pliny's Amygdala, or almond tree, of which 
the early buds and immature fruits were cut off by the frosts 
of spring. 

PKESS — The steam-engine of moral power, which, directed 
by the spirit of the age, will eventually crush imposture, 
superstition, and tyranny. The liberty of the press is the true 
measure of all other liberty, for all freedom without this must 
be merely nominal. To stifle the nascent thought is a moral 
infanticide, a treason against human nature. "What can a man 
call his own, if his thought does not belong to him ? King 
HezeMas is the first recorded enemy to the liberty of the 
press : he suppressed a book which treated of the virtues of 
plants, for fear it should be abused, and engender maladies ; a 
shrewd and notable reason, well worthy of a modern attor- 
ney-general. 

PRIDE—" My brethren," said Swift in a sermon, " there 
are three sorts of pride — of birth, of riches, and of talents. I 
shall not now speak of the latter, none of you being liable to 
that abominable vice." 

If we add to our pride, what we cut off from less favorite 



208 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

faults, we are merely taking our errors out of one pocket to 
put them into another. 

PEIMOGENITUEE— Disinheriting a whole unoffending 
family, in order that the accident of an accident, viz., the 
eldest son of an eldest son, very possibly the last in merit, 
though the first in birth, may be endowed with the patrimony 
of his brothers and sisters, each of whom may exclaim — 

" Sum pauper, non culpa mea, sed culpa parentum, 
Qui me fratre meo non genuere prius." 

Equally opposite to nature, reason, morality, and sound pol- 
icy, this barbarous remnant of the doctrine which maintains 
the many to be made for the few, not the few for the many, 
has been a pregnant source of private as well as public corrup- 
tion. The father whose estate is entailed has lost much of his 
moral influence over his children, being equally unable to reward 
the duty and affection of the juniors, or to control and punish 
the excesses of his heir, whose independence too often occa- 
sions him to be prematurely extravagant, profligate, and un- 
filial. 

" I must live," sorrowfully exclaimed a poor cadet, when 
soliciting a small loan from the heir of a rich family. " Je 
ii'en vols pas la necessite," was the brother's reply. 

It has been urged that the abolition of primogeniture and 
entail would rapidly pauperize the land, by its continual sub- 
division into small allotments. But it is already pauperized, 
where it is not fattened into disease ; for the few are as much 
too rich, as the many are too poor ; and if that be the best 
system which confers the greatest happiness upon the greatest 
number, a more equal distribution of the general wealth would 
surely be an improvement for all. The fine arts might suffer, 
for want of wealthy patrons ; but the useful arts would receive 
an impulse from the greater diffusion of competency; and 
what would be gained in the latter direction might well atone 
for the loss in the former. A nation may pay too dear for the 
arts. It is, doubtless, fine to talk of an Augustan era, and 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 209 

Augustus himself was said to boast that he had found Rome 
of brick, and left it of marble ; but if he had added, as in truth 
he might, that he had found Eome free, and had left it en- 
slaved, what patriot would not have felt the city dishonored 
by its architectural honors ? 

The constant reports in our papers, of lawsuits between 
relations, mostly originating in the unjust system of primo- 
geniture, reminds one of Malherbe, when he was reproached 
for being always at law with his family. " With whom, 
then," he asked, " would you have me be at variance ? The 
Turks and Muscovites will not quarrel with me." 

It was well said, by one whose elder brother, a dissolute 
and unhappy man, had been vaunting the extent of the family 
estate — " I should envy you for what you have, did I not pity 
you for what you are." The same, when once walking with 
his senior, suddenly seized his arms, hurried him on, and ex- 
claimed, with a look of pretended alarm — " Away ! away ! 
your life is in danger — save me from the entailed estate !" — at 
the same time pointing to a board set up in an old gravel pit, 
with the following inscription — " Any one may shoot rubbish 
here." T. H. is made responsible for the truth of this anec- 
dote, though it may possibly be as old as the venerable Jose- 
phus Molitor. 

PROGRESS — Nothing is more common or more stupid, 
than to take the actual for the possible — to believe that all 
which is, is all which can be ; first, to laugh at every proposed 
deviation from practice as impossible — then, when it is carried 
into effect, to be astonished that it did not take place before. 

The world owes all its onward impulses to men ill at ease. 
The happy man inevitably confines himself within ancient 
limits. 

PROVERBS— Brief. fallacies. Thus, "Never put off till 
to-morrow what you can do to-day," which is one of " Poor 
Richard's" rascally and narrow-minded maxims, by which he 
inculcated the divine duty of making money, is notably con- 
tradicted by Aaron Burr who says, " Never do to-day what 



210 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

you can put off till to-morrow," for something may occur to 
make you regret your premature action. 
• There is, however, one proverb worthy of all commenda- 
tion :• " Never judge a book by the cover." It is to be hoped 
that the buyer of this book will form his judgment upon a 
perusal of the inside. 

PBUDERY — The innocence of the vicious — external sanc- 
timony, assumed as a cover for internal laxity. Whenever we 
smell musk or other pungent perfumes, we may fairly suspect 
that the wearer must have some strong effluvium to conquer ; 
and where we observe a Pharisaical display of prudery and 
piety, we shall seldom err in pronouncing that it is the disguise 
of some wolf in sheep's clothing. A nice man, according to 
Swift, is a man of nasty ideas ; and a pretender to superior 
purity will often be found much dirtier than his neighbors. 
Some of these Pharisees will occasionally betray themselves 
by over-acting their part. " I never saw such an indelicate 
gentleman as that at the opposite house ! " exclaimed a young 
female saint ; " he must have seen that I did not choose to pull 
down the blind, and yet he has been watching me the whole 
time I have been changing my dress." Two damsels, of the 
same puritanical stamp, encountering Dr. Johnson, shortly 
after the publication of his Dictionary, complimented him on 
his having omitted all the gross and objectionable words. 
" What, my dears ! " said the doctor, " have you been looking 
out for them already ? " 

PUN'S — The wit of words. They are exactly the same to 
words which wit is to ideas, and -consist in the sudden dis- 
covery of relations in language. A pun, to be perfect in its 
kind, should contain two distinct meanings ; the one common 
and obvious, the other more remote : and in the notice 
which the mind takes of the relation between these two sets 
of words, and in the surprise which* that relation excites, the 
pleasure of a pun consists. Miss Hamilton, in her book on 
education, mentions the instance of a boy so very neglectful 
that he could never be brought to read the word patriardis ; 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 211 

but whenever he met with it he always pronounced it par- 
tridges. A friend of the writer observed to her, that it could 
hardly be considered as a mere piece of negligence, for it ap- 
peared to him that the boy, in calling them partridges, was 
making game of the patriarchs. Now here are two distinct 
meanings contained in the same phrase : for to make game of 
the patriarchs is to laugh at them ; or to make game of them 
is, by a very extravagant and laughable sort of ignorance of 
words, to rank them among pheasants, partridges, and other 
such delicacies, which the law takes under its protection and 
calls game; and the whole pleasure derived from this pun 
consists in the sudden discovery that two such different mean- 
ings are referable to one form of expression. Puns are in very 
bad repute, and so they ought to be. The wit of language is 
so miserably inferior to the wit of ideas that it is very de- 
servedly driven out of good company. Sometimes, indeed, a 
pun makes its appearance which seems for a moment to 
redeem its species ; [see this work passim for such redeeming 
specimens ;] but we must not be deceived by them : it is a 
radically bad race of wit. By unremitting persecution it has 
been at last got under, and driven into cloisters, — from whence 
it must never again be suffered to emerge into the light of the 
world. One invaluable blessing produced by the banishment 
of punning is, an immediate reduction of the number of wits. 
It is a wit of so low an order, and in which some sort of prog- 
ress is so easily made, that the number of those endowed 
with the gift of wit would be nearly equal to those endowed 
with the gift of speech. The condition of putting together 
ideas in order to be witty operates much in the same salutary 
manner as the condition of finding rhymes in poetry ; — it 
reduces the number of performers, to those who have vigor 
enough to overcome incipient difficulties, and makes a sort of 
provision that that which need not be done at all, should be 
done well whenever it is done. 

A gentleman named Cary, expressing an uncertainty to 
what profession he should devote the younger Cary, Lamb 
said, " Make him an apotheCary." 

" Don't be yarning with that fellow," said I to a friend 



212 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

who was talking to an old salt. " Do you think I should be 
worsted ? " was the interrogative reply. 

In my high opinion of Lord Brougham, I have sometimes 
been too prone to fatigue my friends with his praises ; a ten- 
dency which, upon one occasion, elicited a pun bad enough to 
be recorded. My assertion, that he was the greatest man in 
England, being warmly contested, I loudly exclaimed, " Where 
is there a greater?" — "Here!" said the punchmaking T. H., 
with a look of exquisite simplicity, at the same time holding 
up a nutmeg grater. 

PUNISHMENTS — being meant for prevention, not revenge, 
should be so regulated — " ut pcena ad paucos, metus ad omnes 
perveniaV "Wise is that maxim which says, " Non minus 
turpe principi multa supplicia, quam medico multa funera ; " 
and yet we have only lately made the discovery in England, 
that hanging is the very worst use that a man can be put to. 

Some writers have thought that the state should be not less 
solicitous to recompense good deeds, than to punish evil ones ; 
but, perhaps, it is better not to disturb the moralizing impres- 
sion, that virtue is its own best reward. The noblest actions, 
too, would instantly become liable to a tainting suspicion of 
motives, if the virtues were to be scheduled, and remunerated 
according to a fixed tariff. Experience has shown us to what 
infamous purposes the rewards for the apprehension of male- 
factors have been perverted by trading informers, and other 
dealers in blood money. 

Disproportionate punishments are attended with five evils : 
they deter prosecutors from coming forward — they draw 
attention to the crime — awaken pity for the criminal — excite 
hatred of the law — and occasion the magnitude of the tempta- 
tion to offence to be measured by the magnitude of the punish- 
ment. 

PURGATOKY— One of the few inventions of priestcraft 
that almost deserves to be true ; for a medium was wanting 
between the two extremes of perdition and salvation. Que- 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 213 

vedo, in his Visions, tells us, that an old Spanish nobleman 
once met his coachman in purgatory, when the latter exclaimed 
• — " O master, master ! what can ever have brought so good a 
Catholic as you into this miserable place ?" — " Ah, my worthy 
Pedro ! I am justly punished for spoiling that reprobate son of 
mine. But you, who were ever such a sober, steady, well- 
conducted man, what can have brought you hither ? " — " Ah, 
master, master ! " snivelled Pedro, " I am brought here for 
being the father of that reprobate son of yours ! " 

"QUABBELS — would never last long," says Bochefou- 
cauld, "if the fault were only on one side." The Spanish 
proverb, which tells us to beware of a reconciled friend, incul- 
cates an ungenerous suspicion. In the case of lovers, we 
have the authority of Terence for affirming that — Amantium 
ira amoris redintegratio est; and many are the instances 
among friends, where a momentary rupture has only served to 
consolidate the subsequent attachment, as the broken bone, 
that is well set, usually becomes stronger than it was before. 

QUIBBLE — QUIBK — QUIDDET — See Law Proceed- 
ings. " True !' cried a lady, when reproached with the 
inconsistent marriage she had made; "I have often said I 
never would marry a parson, or a Scotchman, or a Presbyte- 
rian ; but I never said I would not marry a Scotch Presbyte- 
rian parson." 

Boger Kemble's wife had been forbidden to marry an 
actor, and her father was inexorable at her disobedience; 
but, after having seen her husband on the stage, he relented, 
and forgave her, with the observation of, " "Well, well, I see 
you have not disobeyed me after all ; for the man is not an 
actor, and never will be an actor." 

QUID PBO QUO— Every one has heard the reply of Mon- 
tague Matthew, when he was spoken to for Matthew Mon- 
tague, — that there is a great difference between a chestnut horse 
and a horse chestnut ; but this seems to have been forgotten, 
nevertheless, by an unlucky wight, who, being engaged to dine 



214 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

at the Green Man at Dulwich, desired to be driven to the Dull 
Man, at Greenwich, and lost his dinner by a quid pro quo. 

T. H. observed of the mate of a Whitby merchant ship, who 
could do nothing without his quid, that he had classical authority 
for " Nil actum reputans dum quid superesset agendum." 

QUILLS — are things that are sometimes taken from the 
pinions of one goose to spread the opinions of another ! 

RAILLERY — has been compared to a light which dazzles, 
but does not burn : this, however, depends on the skill with 
which it is managed ; for many a man, without extracting its 
brilliance, may burn his fingers in playing with this dangerous 
pyrotechnic. Pleasant enough to make game of your friends, 
by shooting your wit at them, but if your merry bantering 
degenerates into coarse and offensive personality, nobody 
will pity you, should you chance to be knocked down by the 
recoil of your own weapon. He who gives pain, however little, 
must not complain should it be retorted with a disproportionate 
severity ; for retaliation always adds interest in paying off old 
scores, and sometimes a very usurious one. Wags should 
recollect, that the amusement of fencing with one's friends is 
very different from the anatomical process of cutting them up. 

A coxcomb, not very remarkable for the acuteness of his 
feelings or his wit, wishing to banter a testy old gentleman, 
who had lately garnished his mouth with a complete set of 
false teeth, flippantly inquired, — " Well, my good sir ! I have 
often heard you complain of your masticators — pray, when do 
you expect to be again troubled with the tooth-ache?" — 
" When you have an affection of the heart, or a brain fever," 
was the reply. Not less ready and biting was the retort of 
the long-eared Irishman, who, being banteringly asked, — " Pad- 
dy, my jewel ! why don't you get your ears cropped ? They 
are too large for a man ! " replied — " And yours are too small 
for an ass." 

A well-known scapegrace, wishing to rally a friend who 
had a morbid horror of death, asked him, as they were passing a 
country church during the performance of a funeral, whether 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 215 

the tolling "bell did not put him in mind of his latter end. 
" No ; but the rope does of yours," was the caustic rely. 

REASON — The proud prerogative which confers on man 
the exclusive privilege of acting and conversing irrationally. 
No man is opposed to reason, unless reason is opposed to him • 
to protest against it, is to confess that you fear it, and they 
who interdict its use, on account of the danger of its abuse, 
may as well build a house without windows, for fear the light- 
ning should enter it, or put out their eyes, lest they should 
go astray. To give reasons against the employment of reason, 
is to refute yourself, and to close up your mind till it resembles 
the bower described by Shakspeare, — 

" Where honeysuckles, ripened by the sun, 
Forbid the sun to enter." 

Prohibiting the exercise of this faculty, in matters of opin- 
ion, is but an imitation of the Papists, who will not allow the 
senses to be judges in the case of transubstantiation. Strange ! 
that instinct, which is the reason of animals, is to be allowed 
to the feathered, and not to the featherless biped. These 
irrationalists seem to think, that the intellectual faculties of 
man are like hemlock and henbane, poisonous to the human, 
but not to the feathered race — Hyosciamus et cicula homines 
perimunt, avibus alimentum prmbent. Reason, however, does 
us all yeoman's service in the defence of any thing unreason- 
able. When Paley was asked why he always kept his horse 
three miles off, he replied, " For exercise." " But you never 
ride." u That is the reason why I keep him at such a distance, 
for I get all the exercise of the walk." 

Still more ingenious was the logic of the schoolboy, whose 
companion thought it absurd that Homer should describe 
Vulcan as being a whole day in falling from the clouds to the 
earth. " Nay," argued the acute youth, " this shows his close 
adherence to nature ; for you can hardly expect Vulcan to 
fall as fast as another man, when you recollect that he was 
lame." His lameness being the consequence of his fall, it must 



216 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

be confessed, that there was unreasonableness enough in this 
reason to satisfy the most zealous irrationalist. 

RECREATION— (says Bishop Hall) is intended to the 
mind as whetting is to the scythe, to sharpen the edge of it, 
which otherwise would grow dull and blunt. He, therefore, 
that spends his whole time in recreation is ever whetting, 
never mowing ; his grass may grow and his steed may starve ; 
as, contrarily, he that always toils and never recreates, is ever 
mowing, never whetting ; laboring much to little purpose. 

EEFOEM — An adaptation of institutions to circumstances 
and knowledge, or a restoration to the original purposes, from 
which they have been perverted, demanded as a right by those 
who are suffering wrongs, and only denied and abused by those 
who have been fattening upon abuse. The real Conservatives 
are the Keformers, the real revolutionists are the corruptionists, 
who, by opposing quiet, will compel violent change. "When 
the ultras, and men of this class, whose long misrule and 
denial of justice have inflamed the public mind, charge the 
Reformers with having thrown the whole country into a blaze, 
thus accusing the extinguisher of being the firebrand, one is 
reminded of the incendiary, who A in order to avoid detection, 
turned round and collared the foreman of the engines, exclaim- 
ing, " Ha, fellow ! have I caught you ? This is the rascal who 
is first and foremost at every fire — seize him ! seize him ! " 
There is no Reform Bill in Turkey, — no factious opposition, — 
no free press, — no twopenny trash, — yet in no country are 
revolutions so frequent. 

Reform, however, to be useful and durable, must be gradual 
and cautious. To those radical gentry of the movement party, 
who would be always at work, without calculating the mischief 
or the cost of their vaunted improvements, I recommend the 
consideration of the following anecdote : — The celebrated 
orator Henley advertised, that, in a single lecture, he would 
teach any artisan of ordinary skill how to make six pair of 
good shoes in one day ; — nay, six-and-twenty pair, provided 
there was a sufficiency of materials. The sons of Crispin 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 217 

flocked in crowds, willingly paying a shilling at the door, to 
be initiated in such a lucrative art, when they beheld the 
orator seated at a table, on which were placed six pair of new 
boots. " Gentlemen ! " he exclaimed, " nothing is so simple 
and easy as the art which I have undertaken to teach you. 
Here are a new pair of boots,— here a large pair of scissors; — 
behold ! I cut off the legs of the boots, and you have a new 
pair of shoes, without the smallest trouble ; and thus may they 
be multiplied, ad infinitum, supposing always that you have a 
sufficiency of materials." 

EELIGIOJST — has been called an insurance against fire in 
the next world, whereof honesty is the best policy. Sydney 
Smith says that people often imagine themselves pious when 
they are only bilious ; by which he meant that they do not 
properly appreciate the difference between a serious disposition 
and a serious indisposition. It has been well said that some 
men's religious opinion is only a stake driven in the ground — 
does not grow — shoots out no green — remains just there, and 
just so. 

RELIGION" — Fashionable — Going to church; making 
devotion a matter of public form and observance between man 
and man, instead of a governing principle, or silent communion 
between the heart and its Creator ; — converting the accessory 
into the principal, and mistaking the symbol and stimulant of 
pious inspiration for the inspirer ; — worshipping the type, 
instead of the archetype ; — being visibly devout, that is to 
say, when anybody sees you. 

RELIGION — General — An accidental inheritance, for 
which, whether it be good or bad, we deserve neither praise 
nor censure, provided that we are sincere and virtuous. 

Let us not, however, be mistaken. Far be it from us to 
assert, that men should be indifferent to the choice of religion, 
still less that all are alike. "We maintain only, that in the 
great majority of instances, little or no choice is allowed ; 
and it is our object to inculcate that humility as to our own 
10 



218 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 



opinions, and that toleration for others, in which the most 
devout are very apt to be the most deficient. 

" Keligion is the mind's complexion, 
Govern'd by birth, not self-election, 
And the great mass of us adore 
Just as our fathers did before. 
"Why should we, then, ourselves exalt 

For what we casually inherit, 
Or view, in others, as a fault, 
What, in ourselves, we deem a merit ? " 

The religion that renders good men gloomy and unhappy, 
can scarcely be a true one. Dr. Blair says, in his Sermon on 
Devotion, " He who does not feel joy in religion, is far from 
the kingdom of heaven." Never can a slavish and cowering 
fear afford a proper basis for the religion of so dignified a 
creature as man, who, in paying honor, must feel that he keeps 
his honor, and is not disunited from himself, even in his com- 
munion with God. Eeverence of ourselves is, in fact, the high- 
est of all reverences ; for, in the image of the Deity, we recog- 
nize the prototype ; and thus elevated in soul, we may humbly 
strive to imitate the divine virtues, without pride or presump- 
tion. Religion has been designated as the love of the good 
and the fair, wherever it exists, but chiefly when absolute and 
boundless excellence is contemplated in " the first good, first 
perfect, and first fair." "With this feeling in their hearts, the 
virtues could never wander from the right faith ; and yet, how 
many good men seek it amid the dry spinosities and tortuous 
labyrinths of theology ! It was a homely saying of Selden, 
" that men look after religion, as the butcher did after his knife, 
when he had it in his mouth." 

Even a sincere religion may be unconsciously mixed up 
with carnal impulses ; for when we cannot bring heaven down 
to earth, we are very apt to take earth up to heaven. That 
ardent adoration of the Virgin Mary, which has procured for 
Catholicism the not inappropriate designation of the Marian 
Eeligion, was derived probably from the days of chivalry, 
when a sexual feeling impassioned the worship paid to the 
celestial idol, and a devout enthusiasm sanctified the homage 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 219 

offered to the earthly one. These spiritual lovers would have 
done well to perpend the fine saying of the philosopher, Mar- 
cus Antoninus — " Thou wilt never do any thing purely human 
in a right manner, unless thou knowest the relation it bears to 
things divine ; or any thing divine, unless thou knowest all the 
relations it has to things human." 

KELIGION — PUEE AND TTNDEFILED BEFOEE GOD AND THE 

Fathek — We have placed this last, because it is the last that 
enters into the contemplation of the numerous classes of 
Christians, most of whom are too busy in fashioning some fan- 
tastical religion of their own, to seek for it in the Scriptures. 
The devout and rational reader is referred to the twenty-seventh 
verse of the first chapter of James. And if he still harbor 
a doubt which be the works of the flesh, and which of 
the Spirit, let him peruse St. Paul's Epistle to the Galatians, 
chap. v. vers. 19-26. 

KEPAETEE — A smart rejoinder, which, when given 
impromptu, even though it should be so hard a hit as to merit 
the name of a knock-down blow, will still stand excused, partly 
from the ready wit it implies, and partly from its always 
bearing the semblance of self-defence. When time, however, 
has been taken to concept a retort, and an opportunity sought 
for launching it, not only does it lose all the praise of extempo- 
raneous quickness, but it assumes a character of revenge rather 
than of repartee. 

Those repartees are the best which turn your adversary's 
weapons against himself, as David killed Goliath with his own 
sword. Aberhethy, the celebrated surgeon, finding a large pile 
of paving stones opposite to his door, on his returning home 
one afternoon in his carriage, swore hastily at the pavior, and 
desired him to remove them. " Where will I take them to ? " 
asked the Hibernian. " To hell ! " cried the choleric surgeon. 
Paddy leant upon his rammer, and then looking up in his 
face, said with an arch smile, " Hadn't I better take them to 
heaven ? — sure they'd be more out of your honor's way." 

The. Earl of Rutland (Manners) said to Sir Thomas More, 



220 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

when the latter was knighted, "Honores mutant Mores.'''' " It 
will do better in English," was the retort : " Honors change 
Manners." 1,1 

REPLY — a ready one. " Carnivorous animals," said a 

collegian to the Rev. S. S , "are always provided with' 

claws and talons to seize their prey ; hoofed animals are 
invariably graminivorous. Is it, therefore, consistent with 
the analogies of nature to describe the devil when he goes 
about seeking whom he may devour, as having a cloven 
foot?" "Yes," replied the divine.; "for we are assured, on 
scriptural authority, that all flesh is grass." Few better replies 
are upon record than that of the young polemic, to whom 
a bishop once said, " If you will tell me where God is, I will 
give you an orange ? " "If you will tell me where He is not, I 
will give you two," was the child's answer. 

REQUEST— a modest one. "When the Duke of Ormonde 
was made Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, in Queen Anne's 
reign, one of his friends applied to him for some preferment, 
adding that he was by no means particular, and was willing to 
accept either a bishopric, or a regiment of horse — or to be 
mad e Lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench. This, however, is 
surpassed by Horace Walpole's anecdote of a humane jailer in 
Oxfordshire, who made the following application to one of his 
condemned prisoners : " My good friend ! I have a little favor 
to ask of you, which, from your obliging disposition, I doubt 
not you will grant. You are ordered for execution on Friday 
week. I have a particular engagement on that day : if it makes 
no difference to you, would you say next Friday instead ? " 

RESOLUTION" — He who sets out by considering all obsta- 
cles well — non obstantibus quibuscunque, has half-accomplished 
his purpose, for the difficulty in human affairs is more often in 
the mind of the undertaker, than in the nature of the under- 
taking. With this feeling, and the nil actum reputans dum 
quid superesset agendum, — nothing is impossible. 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 221 

RESPECTABILITY — Keeping up appearances, paying 
your bills regularly, walking out now and then with your 
wife, and going occasionally to church. On the trial of a 
murderer, a neighbor deposed that he had always considered 
him a person of the highest respectability, as he had kept a gig 
for several years. This could only have occurred in England, 
where it is held that a man who is worth money, must be a 
man of worth. 

RETIREMENT — from business. A mistake in those who 
have not an occupation to retire to, as well as from. Such men 
are never so well or so happily employed, as when they are 
following the avocation which use has made a second nature 
to them. The retired butcher in the neighborhood of Whitby, 
must have found idleness hard work, when he gave notice to 
his friends, that he should kill a lamb every Thursday, just 
by way of amusement. 

RETORT-COURTEOUS—" I said his beard was not cut 
well ; he was in the mind it was ; this is called the retort-cour- 
teous," says one of the characters in Shakspeare ; but this lucus 
d non lucendo, does not come up to our modern idea of the 
term, which should involve some portion of the sharpness or 
smartness of a repartee. Lord G , who is vehemently sus- 
pected of being descended from Ferdinand Mendez Pinto, since 
he never opens his mouth without fibbing, made some dis- 
paraging statement at White's concerning one of the members. 
The party implicated, who happened to overhear him, came 
up to his accuser, and said emphatically, " My Lord, you have 
made an assertion," inferring, as a matter of course, that he 
had uttered a falsehood. It is impossible to imagine a more 
polite, and yet more cutting way of giving the lie. 

Two of the guests at a public dinner having got into an 
altercation, one of them, a blustering vulgarian, vociferated, 
" Sir, you are no gentleman !" " Sir," said his opponent in a 
calm voice, and with a derisive smile, " you are no judge." 
Both these dons mots are complete and literal instances of the 
retort-courteous. 



222 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

There are retorts uncourteous, which can only be justified 
by the occasion. Talleyrand being pestered with importunate 
questions by a squinting man, concerning his broken leg, 
replied, " It is quite crooked, — as you see." 

H. , a keen sportsman, provoked by a cockney horse- 
man who had ridden over two of his hounds, could not forbear 
swearing at him for his awkwardness. "Sir!" said the 
offender, drawing up both himself and his horse, and assuming 
a very consequential look, " I beg to inform you, that I did 
not come out here to be damned." — " Why then, sir, you may 
go home and be damned." 

" Ah ! Dr. Johnson," exclaimed a Scotchman, " what 
would you have said of Buchanan, had he been an English- 
man?" ""Why, sir," replied Johnson, "I should not have 
said of Buchanan, had he been an Englishman, what I will 
now say of him as a Scotchman, that he was the only man of 
genius his country ever produced." 

REVENGE — A momentary triumph, of which the satisfac- 
tion dies at once, and is succeeded by remorse ; whereas for- 
giveness, which is the noblest of all revenges, entails a perpetual 
pleasure. It was well said by a Eoman emperor, that he 
wished to put an end to all his enemies, by converting them 
into friends. 

REVIEW — A work that overlooks the productions it pro- 
fesses to look over, and judges of books by their authors, not 
of authors by their books. 

RHETORIC — Appealing to the passions instead of the 
reason of your auditors, and claiming that value for the work- 
manship, which ought to be measured by the ore alone. An 
orator is one who can stamp such a value upon counterfeit 
coin as shall make^it pass for genuine. Rhetoric, says Plato, 
is the art of ruling the minds of men. Rhetoric, says a later 
writer, is the application of logic to mankind. By reasoning 
we satisfy ourselves. By rhetoric we satisfy others. " Ora- 
tory," said Dr. Johnson, " is the power of beating down your 
adversary's arguments, and putting better in their places." 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 223 

Most modern orators and rhetoricians content tnemselves with 
fulfilling the first part only of this proposition. It is well said 
by Lord Herbert of Oherbury, that there are two parts of elo- 
quence necessary and recommendable ; one is, to speak hard 
things plainly, so that when a knotty or intricate business, 
having no method or coherence in its parts, shall be presented, 
it will be a singular part of oratory to take those parts asunder, 
set them together aptly, and so exhibit them to the under- 
standing. And this part of rhetoric I much commend to every- 
body ; there being no true use of speech but to make things 
clear, perspicuous, and manifest, which otherwise would be 
perplexed, doubtful, and obscure. 

Sydney Smith, in his celebrated Peter Plimley letters, affords 
a notable illustration of the powers of rhetoric in written elo- 
quence. As instance this passage, apropos of the English 
Embargo act, by which, among other things, drugs were for the 
moment excluded from France : Such a project is well worthy 
the statesman who would bring the French to reason by keep- 
ing them without rhubarb, and exhibit to mankind the awful 
spectacle of a nation deprived of neutral salts. This is not the 
dream of a wild apothecary indulging in his own opium ; this is 
not the distempered fancy of a pounder of drugs, delirious from 
smallness of profits ; but it is the sober, deliberate, and systematic 
scheme of a man to whom the public safety is intrusted, and 
whose appointment is considered by many as a masterpiece of 
political sagacity. What a sublime thought, that no purge can 
now be taken between the Weser and the Garonne ; that the 
bustling pestle is still, the canorous mortar mute, and the bowels 
of mankind locked up for fourteen degrees of latitude ! When, 
I should be curious to know, were all the powers of crudity 
and flatulence fully explained to his majesty's ministers ? At 
what period was this great plan of conquest and constipation 
fully developed ? In whose mind was the idea of destroying 
the pride, and the plasters of France first engendered ? With- 
out castor oil they might, for some months, to .be sure, have 
carried on a lingering war ; but can they do without bark ? 
Will the people live under a government where antimonial 
powders cannot be procured. Will they bear the loss of mer- 



224 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

cury ? " There's the rub." Depend upon it, the absence of 
the materia medica will soon bring them to their senses, and 
the cry of Bourbon and bolus burst forth from the Baltic to 
the Mediterranean. 

EICHES — are seldom really despised, though they may be 
vilipended upon the principle of the fox, who imputed sourness 
to the unattainable grapes. We cannot well attach too much 
value to a competency, or too little to a superfluity, b,ut we 
may and do err in generally defining the former as a little 
more than we already .possess. Eiches provide an antidote to 
their bane, for though they encourage idleness, they will pur- 
chase occupation, by change of scene, variety of company, 
pastimes of all sorts, and by that noblest employment of any, 
the exercise of beneficence. Kobinson Crusoe might despise 
riches — so may a savage ; but no sane and civilized man will 
hold them in contempt. 

" If you live," says Seneca, " according to the dictates of 
nature, you will never be poor ; if according to the notions of 
the world, you will never be rich." 

ROMAN CATHOLIC RELIGION— Horace Walpole in his 
Letters mentions a sceptical bon-vivant, who, upon being urged 
to turn Roman Catholic, objected that it was a religion enjoin- 
ing so many fasts, and requiring such implicit faith ; — " You 
give us," he observed, " too little to eat, and too much to 
swallow." 

SATIRE — A glass in which the beholder sees everybody's 
face but his own. 

SAW — A sort of dumb alderman which gets through a 
great deal by the activity of its teeth. — N. B. A bona-fide 
alderman is not one of the " wise saws " mentioned by Shak- 
speare, at least in " modern instances." 

SCANDAL — What one half of the world takes a pleasure 
in inventing, and the other half in believing. 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 225 

SCANDALOUS REPORTS— says Boerhaave, are sparks, 
which if you do not blow them, will go out of themselves. 
They have, perhaps, been better compared to volcanic explo 
sions, of which the lighter portions are dispersed by the winds, 
while the heavier fall back into the mouth whence they were 
ejected. Scandalous journals, professedly dealing in person- 
ality and abuse, have been justly termed the opprobrium of 
the age. Nuisances as they are, it is, perhaps, wise not to 
molest them, but to let them die of their own stench. Prose- 
cutions for libel avail little against men of straw, and as to 
personal chastisement, the rogues 

" Have all been beaten till tbey know 
What wood the cudgel's of by the blow ; 
Or kick'd, until they can tell whether 
A shoe be Spanish or neat leather." 

SCHOOLMASTER— A dealer in boys and birch : often an 
academical tyrant, who, in his utter ignorance of proper man- 
agement, renders his victims intractable by maltreatment, and 
then treats them worse for being intractable. Cudgel a little 
jackass as often as you will, and if he survives your cruelty, he 
will only end by being a great jackass. Many of our peda- 
gogues, ever ready to ply the birch and the ferula, make no 
allowance for natural deficiency of talent, while they will 
often terrify a lad of good abilities, but weak nerves, into an 
asinine stupidity. The boys from whom they gather their 
harvest, they seem to consider as so much corn, which must 
be threshed and knocked about the ears before any grains of 
sense can be extracted ; or perhaps they liken them to walnut 
trees, which shower down their fruit in return for being well 
beaten. " The schoolmaster's joy is to flog," says Swift ; 
since when a hundred years have elapsed, and it still remains 
the favorite pastime of our pedagogues, who seem to think 
that boys, as well as syllabubs, are to be raised by flogging. 
Ships and fishes may make their way when steered by the 
tail ; but when we attempt to guide or impel youngsters by a 
similar process, we only retard or turn them out of their right 
line. Flagellation, whether of pupils or of soldiers, invariably 
10* 



226 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

hardens and depraves those whom it seeks to reclaim. In 
nothing is a thorough reform so much wanted as in some of 
our old-fashioned seminaries and teachers. 

An empty-headed youth once boasted that he had been to 
two of the most celebrated schools in England. " Sir," said a 
bystander, " you remind me of the calf that sucked two cows." 
" And what was the consequence ? " " Why, sir, he was a 
very great calf." 

SCOTCHMEN — The inhabitants of every country except 
their own. " No wonder," says Dean Lockier, " that we meet 
with so many clever Scotchmen, for every man of that coun- 
try, who has any sense, leaves it as fast as he can." 

SCOTT — Sie Walter — Twenty-two bad poets have already 
written epitaphs upon this celebrated author. What a gain 
would it be to the world if Sir Walter were now writing 
theirs ! 

SCULPTURE — The noble art of making an imperishable 
portrait in marble or bronze. There are various ways of con- 
templating these exquisite productions of genius. We may be 
delighted by the beauty of a statue, amazed by the triumph of 
manual dexterity which it exhibits, or we may be interested 
in its associations with the past or the future. Or there is a 
utilitarian and economical way of considering the matter, 
which was well illustrated by two artisans, when Chantrey's 
bronze statue of George the Fourth was first exhibited : " What 
a lot o' penny pieces all this here copper would have made," 
observed one. — " Ay, never mind, Jack ! " said his compan- 
ion, pointing at the figure — " it will cost a deal less to keep 
he, than it does to keep the live un ! " 

A contemporary writer has asked, why we attach so little 
value to the wax figures in the perfumers' shops, which ap- 
proach much nearer to nature than the most elaborate marble 
bust ; but he must have forgotten that all works of art are 
estimated in the mingled ratio of their difficulty, utility, and 
permanence, not by their mere similitude to the object hn- 



THE TIN TEIXMPET. 227 

ifcated. " You would not value the finest head cut out upon 
a carrot," said Dr. Johnson. Here he was right, hut he was 
wrong when he added that the value of statuary was solely 
owing to its difficulty ; for its durability, we might almost say 
its perpetuity, gives it an almost immeasurable advantage over 
a perishable painting. 

SEA — The — Three-fourths of what we might call the earth 
— the dwelling-place of whales, walruses, porpoises, seals, 
sailors, and other monsters. 

Strange that we often lose our way in travelling by land, 
where we have only to follow our nose, pursue the high roads 
chalked out for us, and read the sign-posts set up for our 
guidance ; while in traversing the pathless deep, with none to 
ask, and no sea-marks to direct, with nothing to peruse but 
the blank main and the illegible sky, a vessel seldom fails, 
however long and remote may be her voyage, to steer direct 
into her destined harbor. This is the proudest victory of sci- 
ence ; the greatest triumph of man over the elements. The 
little round compass is the ring that marries the most distant 
nations to each other. Commerce is the parent of civiliza- 
tion ; the coasts and ports of a country will be always found 
more polished than the inland parts. The sea, therefore, shall 
ever receive the homage of my profound respect, but I cannot 
admire it. Hunt has justly defined it as a great, monotonous 
idea. So little do I like it, that I care not to dwell upon it, 
even with my pen. 

SECRETS — A secret is like silence — you cannot talk about 
it, and keep it ; it is like money— when once you know there is 
any concealed, it is half discovered. " My dear Murphy ! " said 
an Irishman to his friend, " why did you betray the secret I told 
you?" "Is it betraying you call it? Sure, when I found I 
wasn't able to keep it myself, didn't I do well to tell it to- 
somebody that could ? " 

SECTS— Different clans of religionists, the very variety 
and number of. which should inculcate mutual respect and 



228 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

toleration, instead of hatred, and that odious self-worship 
which many people imagine to be worship of the Creator. 

" Embracing those whom Europe holds, 
The Christian catalogue unfolds 

About a hundred different sects, 
And due indulgence it should teach 
To every follower of each ; 

If for a moment he reflects, 
The chances are against his own, 
Just as one hundred are to one." 

SELF-LO YE— Thinking the most highly of the individual 
that least deserves our regard. The self-love of most men 
consists in pleasing themselves, but there are some cases where 
it displays itself in pleasing others. In neither is it altogether 
to be condemned, for our sensibilities may be too weak, as 
well as too strong, and they who feel little for themselves 
will feel little or not at all for others. Nothing can be more 
different than fortitude and insensibility; the one being a 
noble principle, the other a mere negation ; and yet they are 
often confounded. 

SERMONS— Sometimes theological opiates — sometimes 
religious discourses, attended by many who do not attend to 
them, and when published, purchased by many who do not 
read them. 

"How comes it," demanded a clergyman of Garrick, 
" that I, in expounding divine doctrines, produce so little 
effect upon my congregation, while you can so easily arouse 
the passions of your auditors by the representation of fiction ?" 
The answer was short and pithy. " Because I recite false- 
hoods as if they were true, while you deliver truths as if they 
were false." 

SERVANTS — Liveried deputies, upon whose tag-rag-and- 
bobtail shoulders we wear our own pride and ostentation; 
household sinecurists, who invariably do the less, the less they 
have to do ; domestic drones, who are often the plagues, and 
not seldom the masters of their masters. Many who have 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 229 

now become too grand for grand liveries, and will not shoulder 
the shoulder-knot, are only to be distinguished from those 
whom they serve by their better looks and figures, and more 
magisterial air. Let no man expect to be well attended in a 
large establishment ; where there are many waiters, the mas- 
ter is generally the longest waiter. A Grand Prior of France, 
once abusing Palapret for beating his lackey, he replied in a 
rage, " Zooks, sir, he deserves it ; I have but this one, and 
yet I am every bit as badly served as you who have twenty." 

SET-DOWN — That species of rebuke familiarly termed a 
set-down, when it has been merited by the offending party, 
and is inflicted without an undue severity, is generally very 
acceptable to every one but its object. An empty coxcomb, 
after having engrossed the attention of the company for some 
time with himself and his petty ailments, observed to Dr. 
Parr, that he could never go out without catching cold in his 
head. " No wonder," cried ' the doctor, pettishly, " you 
always go out without any thing in it." Another of the same 
stamp, who imagined himself to be a poet, once said to Nat. 
Lee, " Is it not easy to write like a madman, as you do ? " 
" No ; but it is very easy to write like a fool, as you do." 

SETTLER— Tom Hood, in one of his delightful Comic 
Annuals, has an engraving of a colonist meeting a settler in 
the form of an infuriated lion, who with bristling mane seems 
prepared to give the stranger a passport down his throat. 
We may encounter a less formidable, but equally conclusive 
settler, without stirring from our own firesides, and afford a 
proof at the same time, that a bad thing put into the mouth 
will sometimes bring a good thing out of it. ' An epicure, 
while eating oysters, swallowed one that was not fresh. 
" Zounds, waiter I " he ejaculated, making a wry face, " what 
sort of an oyster do you call this ? " "A native, sir," replied 
the wielder of the knife. " A native ! — / call it a settler, so 
you need not open any more. What's to pay ? !? 

SHOOTING THE LONG-BOW— Stretching a fact till 



230 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

you have made it as long as you want it. Lord Herbert of 
Cherbury's tastes have descended to some of our modern 
nobility, for he tells us in his Autobiography, " The exercises 
I chiefly used, and most recommended to my posterity, were, 
riding the great horse and fencing. I do much approve like- 
wise of shooting in the long-oowP So does our ingenious con- 
temporary, Lord G , who never suffers himself to be out- 
stripped in the marvellous. The Marquis of H — ! — had 
engaged the attention of a dinner party, l)y stating that he 
had caught a pike, the day before, which weighed nineteen 

pounds. " Pooh ! " cried Lord G , " that is nothing to the 

salmon I hooked last week, which weighed fifty-six pounds." 
" Hang it," whispered the Marquis to his neighbor, " I wish 
I could catch my pike again ; I would add ten pounds to him 
directly." 

SICKNESS — without reference to the religious impressions 
it is calculated to awaken, is well worth enduring, now and 
then, not only for the pleasure of convalescence, but that we 
may learn a due and grateful sense of the blessing of health. 
" Every recovery," says Jean Paul Kichter, " is a palingenesia, 
and bringing back of our youth, making us love the earth, and 
those that are on it, whin a new love." 

SIDE WIND ATTACK— The not uncommon custom of 
pelting a friend, after he has left the company, seems to have 
been derived from the practice of the ancient tribes, who 
erected a monument to a departed hero, by throwing stones 
upon him. 

SILENCE — A thing which it is often difficult to keep, in 
exact proportion as it is dangerous not to keep it. So frail 
that we cannot even speak of it without breaking it, and yet 
as easily and as completely to be restored as it was destroyed, 
few people understand the use, or appreciate the value of this 
mysterious quality. All men, when they talk, think that they 
are conferring pleasure upon others, because they feel it them- 
selves ; but none suspect that the same object may sometimes 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 231 

be more effectually obtained by their silence. A good lis- 
tener is much more rare than a good talker, because the con- 
versation of general society seldom fixes the attention, and 
thus, in the hopelessness of curing the evil, we aggravate it. 

" When I go into company," said L , " I am compelled to 

become as great a chatterbox as the rest, because I had rather 
hear my own nonsense than that of other people. "After 
all," observed his niece one day, when he was twitting her 
with her loquacity, " I know many men who talk more than 
women." — " Ay," was the reply, " more to the point." 

' L was once overturned in a carriage with his niece, 

who finding, after all her screams, that she had received no 
hurt, asked her uncle how, in such an imminent danger, he 
could have preserved so perfect a silence. " Because I was 
tolerably sure that death would not be frightened away by 
my making a noise." 

Socrates, when a chatterbox applied to him to be taught 
rhetoric, said that he must pay double the usual price, because 
it would first be necessary to teach him to hold his tongue. 
We may be sometimes gainers by practising this difficult art, 
even at a festive meeting. " Silence," exclaimed an epicure to 
some noisy guests, " you make so much noise that we don't 
know what we are eating." 

SILK — The refuse of a reptile, employed to give distinc- 
tion and dignity to the lord of the creation. Compare the 
caterpillar in its cocoon with the king's counsel in his silk 
gown, and in adjusting the claims of the rival worms, the palm 
of ingenuity must be conceded to the former, because it spins 
and fashions its own covering, whereas the latter can only 
spin out the thread of empty elocution, and weave a web of 
sophistry. The Abbe Raynal calls silk, " V outrage de ce ver 
rampant, qui Tiabille Vhomme defeuilles d^arbres elaoorees dans 
son sein." Hear how the pompous Gibbon, gives the same 
information. " I need not explain that silk is originally spun 
from the bowels of a caterpillar, and that it composes the 
golden tomb, whence a worm emerges in the form of a but- 
terflyx" There is an Arabian proverb which conveys the 



232 the tin' trumpet. 

same fact in a much more moral and poetical form. " With 
patience and perseverance the leaf of the mulberry tree 
becomes satin." 

SLANDERER — A person of whom the Greeks showed a 
due appreciation, when they made the word synonymous with 
devil. Slanderers are at all events economical, for they make 
a little scandal go a great way, and rarely open their mouths, 
except at the expense of other people. "We must allow that 
they have good excuse for being defamatory, if it be their 
object to bring down others to their own level. It may be 
further urged in their extenuation, that they are driven to 
their trade by necessity ; they filch the fair character of others, 
because they have none of their own ; and with this advan- 
tage, that the stolen property can never be found upon them. 
There is a defence also for their covert and cowardly mode of 
attacking you, for how can you expect that backbiters should 
meet you face to face ? Nay, they have even a valid plea for 
being so foul-mouthed, considering how often they have been 
compelled to eat their own words. Hang them ! let us do the 
fellows justice 1 

SLOTH — The sloth, in its wild state, spends its life in 
trees, and never leaves them but from force or accident. The 
eagle to the sky, the mole to the ground, the sloth to the 
tree ; but what is most extraordinary, h*e lives not upon the 
branches, but under them. He moves suspended, rests sus- 
pended, sleeps suspended, and passes his life in suspense — like 
a young clergyman distantly related to a bishop. 

SMITH — Alexander — A noted manufacturer of and whole- 
sale dealer in Images. The subjoined Sonnet to the Sun is 
evidently by a cook who has thoroughly imbibed the spirit of 
his great master, the Image-monger : — 

" Day is done brown, and set away to cool ; 
And Evening, like a salad fresh and moist, 
And pepper 1 d with her muster'd stars, comes on ; — 
The moon, like a large cheese, cut just in half, 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 233 

Hangs o'er the landscape most invitingly ; — 

The milky -way reveals her silver stream 

'Mid the blanc-mange-like clouds that fleck the sky; — 

The cattle dun, sleeping in pastures brown, 

Show like huge dough-nuts 'mid the deep'ning gloom. 

How like a silver salver shines the lake ! 

"While mimic clouds upon its surface move, 

Like floating islands in a crystal bowl. 

The dews come down to wash the flower-cups clean, 

And night-winds follow them to wipe them dry. 

" On such an eve as this 'tis sweet to sit 
And thus commune with Nature, as she brings 
Familiar symbols to the thoughtful breast, 
And spreads her feast of meditative cheer. 
Day with its broils and fiery feuds is o'er, 
Its jars discordant and its seething strifes, 
And all its boiling passions hush'd to peace. 
Old Earth, hung on her spit before the sun, 
Turns her huge sides alternate to his rays, 
Basted by rains and dews, and cooks away, 
And so will cook, till she is done,— and burnt. 

SNUFF — Dirt thrust up the nostrils with a pig-like snort, 
as a sternutatory, which is not to be sneezed at. The moment 
he has thus defeated his own. object, the snuffling snuff-taker 
becomes the slave of a habit, which literally brings his nose to 
the grindstone ; his Ormskirk has seized him as St. Dunstan 
did the devil, and if the red-hot pincers could occasionally 
start up from the midst of the rappee, few persons would 
regret their embracing the proboscis of the offender. Lord 
Stanhope has very exactly calculated that in forty years, two 
entire years of the snuff-taker's life will be devoted to tickling 
his nose, and two more to the agreeable processes of blowing 
and wiping it, with other incidental circumstances. Well 
would it be if we bestowed half the time in making ourselves 
agreeable, that we waste in rendering ourselves offensive to 
our friends. Society takes its revenge by deciding, that no 
man would thrust dirt into his head, if he had got any thing 
else in it. 

SOCIETY — If persons would never meet except when they 
have something to say, and if they would always separate 



234 THE TIN TEUMPET. 

when they have exhausted their pleasant or profitable topics, 
how delightful, but alas ! how evanescent would be our social 
assemblages. 

SOLDIER — A man machine, so thoroughly deprived of its 
human portion, that at the breath of another man machine, it 
will blindly inflict or suffer destruction. Divested of his tinsel 
trappings, his gold lace, feathers, music, and the glitter of the 
false glory with which it has been attempted to dazzle the 
world as to his real state, it is difficult to imagine any thing 
more humiliating than the condition of a soldier. 

Nothing so much shows the triumph of opinion and usage 
over fact, of the conventional over the abstract, as that a pro- 
fession, apparently so much at variance with all their feelings, 
should be chosen by gentlemen of independence, humanity, 
and reflection. Nothing is more redeeming to our common 
nature, than that such men, placed in a sphere so expressly 
calculated to make them both slavish and tyrannical, should 
generally preserve their good qualities from contamination. 
Why they ever entered it, we presume not to inquire, but we 
are bound to believe that the motive was not less rational and 
amiable than that of the affectionate Irishman, who enlisted 
in the seventy-fifth regiment, in order to be near his brother, 
who was a corporal in the seventy-sixth. — (Vide Josephus 
Molitor.) 

SPECULATION' — A word that sometimes begins with its 
second letter. 

SPELLING — Bad — is sometimes the best, as in the case 
of the Beer vendor, who wrote over his shop-door, " Bear sold 
here," manifestly implying, as was observed by my friend T. 

II , that it was his own Bruin. Not less ingenious was 

the device of the quack doctor, who announced in his printed 
handbills, that he could instantly cure, " the most obstinate 
agueics" thus satisfactorily proving that he was no conjuror, 
and did not attempt to cure them by a spell. 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 235 

SPINSTER — An unprotected female, and of course a fine 
subject for exercising the courage of cowards, and the wit of 
the witless. 

STEAM — Strange that there should slumber in yonder tran- 
quil pond a power so tremendous, that, could we condense 
and direct its energies, it might cleave the solid earth in 
twain, and yet so gentle that it may be governed, and applied, 
and set to perform its stupendous miracles by a child ! The 
discovery that water would resist being boiled above 212 de- 
grees, has conferred upon England its manufacturing suprem- 
acy, and will eventually produce changes, both moral and 
physical, of which it is difficult to limit the extent. One 
bushel of coals, properly consumed, will raise seventy millions 
of pounds weight a foot high. The Menai Bridge, weighing 
four millions of pounds, suspended at a medium height of 120 
feet, might have been raised where it is by seven bushels of 
coals. M. Dupin estimated in 1820 the steam engines of Eng- 
land to possess a moving power equivalent to that of 6,400,000 
men at the windlass. And this stupendous agent is at present 
only in its infancy ! 

STOMACH — The epicure's deity. Buffon gave it as his 
deliberate conviction, that this portion of our economy was 
the seat of thought, an opinion which he seems to have adopted 
from Persius, who dubs it a master of arts, and the dispenser 
of genius. So satisfied are we of its reflecting disposition, that 
we call a cow, or other beast with two stomachs, a ruminating 
animal par excellence. To judge by the quantity they eat, we 
might infer some of our own species to have two stomachs ; 
but when we listen to their discourse we find it difficult to 
include them in the class of ruminating animals. 

STONE— The Philosophers— The folly of those who have 
inherited Midas's ears without his touch. A will-o'-the-wisp, 
however, does not always lead us into quagmires ; in running 
after shadows we sometimes catch substances, and in following 
illusions overtake the most valuable realities. The pursuit of 



236 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

the philosopher's stone has by no means been a vain one. 
Alchemy has given us chemistry, and we are indebted to the 
astrologers for the elucidation of the most difficult problems in 
astronomy. The clown who, in running to catch a fallen star, 
stumbled, and kicked up a hidden treasure, has found many 
an unintentional imitator among scientific visionaries and star- 
gazers. Perhaps more has been gained by long and vainly 
seeking the quadrature of the circle, the longitude, and per- 
petual motion, than would have arisen from immediate success. 
Morals, too, have their philosopher's stone, in other shapes 
than those of Plato's Atlantis, or More's Utopia; and it is 
healthy to chase such chimeras, if it were only for the sake of 
air and exercise, in an atmosphere of purity. Many real vir- 
tues may be acquired by straining after an imaginary and 
unattainable perfection. Crede quod habes, et habes, "When a 
thing is once believed possible, it is half realized. 

STONE — to pelt with. Dr. Magee affirms that the Roman 
Catholics have a Church without a religion — the Dissenters, 
a religion without a Church — the Establishment, both a 
Church and a religion. " This is false," observes Eobert Hall 
of Leicester ; " but it is an excellent stone for a clergyman to 
pelt with." 

STUPIDITY — is often more apparent than real ; it may be 
indisposition rather than incapacity. The human mind is not 
like logic — the major does not always contain the minor ; and 
men who feel themselves fit for great things, cannot always 
accomplish little ones. Claude Lorraine was dismissed by the- 
pastry-cook to whom he had been apprenticed, for sheer stu- 
pidity. The difficulty did not consist in bringing his mind up, 
but in bringing it down to the manufacture of bunns and 
tartlets. 

STYLE — To have a good style in writing you should have 
none ; as perfect beauty of face consists in the absence of any 
predominant feature. Mannerism, whether in writing or 
painting, can never be a merit. Swift is right when he de- 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 237 

cides, that "Proper words in proper places make the true 
definition of a good style." 

" He who would write well," says Eoger Ascham, " must 
follow the advice of Aristotle, — to speak as the common people 
speak, and to think as the wise think." Style, however, is 
but the coloring of the picture, which should always be held 
subordinate to the design. " We may well forgive Tertullian 
his iron style," says Balzac, " when we recollect what excel- 
lent weapons he has forged out of this iron, for the defence of 
Christianity and the defeat of the Marcionites and Valen- 
tinians." 

SUBSCRIPTIONS— Peivate— Paying your creditors by 
taxing your friends ; an approved method for getting rid of 
both. Many years ago, a worthy and well-known baronet, 
having become embarrassed in his circumstances, a subscrip- 
tion was set on foot by his friends, and a letter, soliciting con- 
tributions, was addressed to the late Lord Erskine, who 
immediately despatched the following answer : — 

" My dear Sir John, 
I am in general an enemy to subscriptions of this nature ; 
first, because my own finances are by no means in a flourish- 
ing plight ; and secondly, because pecuniary assistance, thus 
conferred, must be equally painful to the donor and the re- 
ceiver. As I feel, however, the sincerest gratitude for your 
public services, and regard for your private worth, I have 
great pleasure in subscribing — (Here the worthy Baronet, big 
with expectation, turned over the leaf, and finished the perusal 
of the note, which terminated as follows:) — in subscribing 
myself, 

" My dear Sir John, 

" Yours very faithfully, 

" Eeskine." 

SUGGESTION"— A friendly one. A man who had had his 
ears cuffed in a squabble, without resenting the affront, being 
shortly afterwards in a party, and in want of a pinch of snuff, 
exclaimed, " I cannot think what I have done with my box ; 



238 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

it is not in either of my pockets." — " Try your ears," said a 
bystander. 

SUPPER — A receipt for indigestion, and a sleepless night. 
A Spanish proverb says — A little in the morning is enough ; 
enough at dinner is but little ; a little at night is too much. 
This agrees pretty nearly with the Latin dictum — 

"Pone guise metas, ut sit tibi longior setas, 
Esse cupis sanus ? — Sit tibi parca manus." 

SYMPATHY — A sensibility, of which its objects are some- 
times insensible. It may be perilous to discourage a feeling, 
whereof there is no great superabundance in this selfish and 
hard-hearted world ; but even of the little that exists, a por- 
tion is frequently thrown away. Such is the power of adapta- 
tion in the human mind, that those who seem to be in the 
most pitiable plight have often the least occasion for our pity. 
A city damsel, whose ideas had been Arcadianized by the 
perusal of pastorals, having once made an excursion to a dis- 
tance of twenty miles from London, wandered into the fields 
in the hope of. discovering a lona fide live shepherd. To her 
infinite delight, she at length encountered one, under a haw- 
thorn hedge in full blossom, with his dog by his side, his crook 
in his hand, and his sheep round about him, just as if he were 
sitting to be modelled in china for a chimney ornament. To 
be sure, he did not exhibit the azure jacket, jessamine vest, 
pink tiffany inexpressibles, peach-colored stockings, and golden 
buckles of those faithful portraitures. This was mortifying ; 
still more so, that he was neither particularly young nor 
cleanly ; but, most of all, that he wanted the indispensable 
accompaniment of a pastoral reed, in order that he might be- 
guile his solitude with the charms of music. Touched with 
pity at this privation, and lapsing, unconsciously, into poetical 
language, the civic damsel exclaimed — " Ah ! gentle shepherd, 
tell me where's your pipe ? " — " I left it at home, Miss," replied 
the clown, scratching his head, " 'cause I ha'nt got no baccy." 

A benevolent committee-man of the Society for superseding 
the necessity of climbing boys, seeing a sooty urchin weeping 



THE TIN TEUMPET. . 289 

bitterly, at the corner of a street, asked hiin the cause of his 
distress. "Master has been using me shamefully," sobbed 
the sable sufferer ; "he has been letting Jem Hudson go up 
the chiinney at No. 9, when it was my turn ! He said it was 
too high, and too dangerous for me, but I'll go up a chimney 
with Jem Hudson any day in the year ; that's what I will ! " 

There is a local sympathy, however, in which we cannot 
well be mistaken, and which it is lamentable not to possess ; 
for that man — to use the words of Dr. Johnson — "is little 
to be envied, whose patriotism would not g^ain force upon the 
plain of Marathon, or whose piety would not grow warmer 
among the ruins of Iona." 

Even the most obdurate and perverse natures cannot al- 
ways resist the power of sympathy. Indecorous as it is, we 
must quote Lord Peterborough's observation on the celebrated 
Fenelon ; — " He is a delicious creature ; I was forced to get 
away from him as fast as I possibly could, else he would have 
made me pious." As a profane man may be pleased with 
piety, so may a wise one be occasionally pleased with folly, 
through sympathy with the pleasures of others. 

Most misplaced and mischievous of all, is that spurious 
sympathy, by which some of our journalists and novel writers 
seek to enlist our feelings in the cause of the basest malefac- 
tors. " To make criminals the object of a sentimental admira- 
tion, and of a sort of familiar attachment ; to hold up as a hero 
the treacherous murderer, whose life has been passed in reck- 
less profligacy, merely because, at his death, he displays a 
firmness which scarcely ever deserts the vilest, is a task as 
unworthy of literary talents as it is unfit for cultivated and 
liberal minds." 

TACT — Talent is something, but tact is every thing. Tal- 
ent is serious, sober, grave, and respectable ; tact is all that, 
and more too. It is not a seventh sense, but is the life of all 
the five. It is the open eye, the quick ear, the judging taste, 
the keen smell, and the lively touch : it is the interpreter of 
all riddles — the surmounter of all difficulties — the remover of 
all obstacles. It is useful in all places, and at all times : it is 



240 THE TIN TKTJMPET. 

useful in solitude, for it shows a man his way into the world ; 
it is useful in society, for it shows him his way through the 
world. Talent is power — tact is skill : talent is weight — tact 
is momentum : talent knows what to do — tact knows how 
to do it : talent makes a man respectable — tact will make 
him respected : talent is wealth — tact is ready money. For 
all the practical purposes of life tact carries it against talent — 
ten to one. Take them to the theatre, 'and pit them against 
each other on the stage, and talent shall produce you a tragedy 
that will scarcely live long enough to be damned, while tact 
keeps the house in a roar, night after night, with its successful 
farces. There is no want of dramatic talent, there is no want 
of dramatic tact, but they are seldom together ; so we have 
successful pieces which are not respectable, and respectable 
pieces which are not successful. Take them to the bar, and 
let them shake their learned curls at each other in legal rivalry : 
talent sees its way clearly, but tact is first at its journey's end. 
Talent has many a compliment from the bench, but tact 
touches fees from attorneys and clients. Talent speaks learn- 
edly and logically — tact triumphantly. Talent makes the 
world wonder that it gets on no faster, tact excites astonish- 
ment that it gets on so fast ; and the secret is, that it has no 
weight to carry : it makes no false steps — it hits the right nail 
on the head — it loses no time — it takes all hints — and by keep- 
ing its eye on the weathercock, is ready to take advantage of 
every wind that blows. Take them into the church. Talent 
has always something worth hearing ; tact is sure of abundance 
of hearers. Talent may obtain a living, tact will make one. 
Talent gets a good name, tact a great one. Talent convinces, 
tact converts. Talent is an honor to the profession, tact gains 
honor from the profession. Take them to court. Talent feels 
its weight, tact finds its way. Talent commands, tact is obey- 
ed. Talent is honored with approbation, and tact is blessed 
by preferment. Place them in the Senate. Talent has the ear 
of the House, but tact wins its heart and has its votes. Talent 
is fit for employment, but tact is fitted for it. It has a knack 
of slipping into place with a sweet silence and glibness of 
movement, as a billiard-ball insinuates itself into the pocket. 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 241 

It seems to know every thing without learning any thing. It 
has served an invisible and extemporary apprenticeship. It 
wants no drilling. It never ranks in the awkward squad. 
It has no left hand, no deaf ear, no blind side. It puts on no 
looks of wondrous wisdom, it has no air of profundity ; but 
plays with the details of place as dexterously as a well-taught 
hand flourishes over the keys of the piano-forte. It has all the 
air of common-place, and all the force and power of genius. 
It can change sides with a Jiey-presto movement, and be at all 
points of the compass, while talent is ponderously and learn- 
edly shifting a single point. Talent calculates clearly, reasons 
logically, makes out a case as clear as daylight, and utters its 
oracles with all the weight of justice and reason. Tact refutes 
without contradicting, puzzles the profound with profundity, 
and without wit outwits the wise. Set them together on a 
race for popularity, pen in hand, and tact will distance talent 
by half the course. Talent brings to market that which is 
wanted; tact produces that which is wished for. Talent 
instructs ; tact enlightens. Talent leads where no one fol- 
lows ; tact follows where the humor leads. Talent is pleased 
that it 'ought to have succeeded ; tact is delighted that it has 
succeeded. Talent toils for a posterity which will never repay 
it ; tact throws away no pains, but catches the passion of the 
passing hour. Talent builds for eternity ; tact on a short 
lease, and gets good interest. Talent is certainly a very fine 
thing to talk about, a very good thing to be proud of, a very 
glorious eminence to look down from ; but tact is useful, port- 
able, applicable, always alive, always alert, always market- 
able ; it is the talent of talents, the availableness of resources, 
the applicability of power, the eye of discrimination, the right 
hand of intellect. 

TALENT — Such are the changes and chances of the world, 
and so difficult is it to ascertain our own understandings, or 
those of others, that most things are done by persons who 
could have done something else better. If you choose to rep- 
resent the various parts in life by holes upon a table, of differ- 
ent shapes,— some circular, some triangular, some square, some 
11 



242 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

oblong, — and the persons acting these parts by bits of wood of 
similar shapes, we shall generally find that the triangular per- 
son has got into the square hole, the oblong into the trian- 
gular, and a square person has squeezed himself into the round 
hole. The officer and the office, the doer and the thing done, 
seldom fit so exactly that we can say they were almost made 
for each other. 

TALENT — Acquired — What we want in natural abilities 
may generally and easily be made up in industry ; as a dwarf 
may keep pace with a giant, if he will but move his legs a lit- 
tle faster. " Mother ! " said the Spartan boy, going to battle, 
" my sword is too short." " Add a step to it," was the reply. 

TALKEES — Great — not only do the least, but generally 
say the least, if their words be weighed, instead of reckoned. 
He who labors under an incontinence of speech, seldom gets 
the better of his complaint ; for he must prescribe for himself, 
and is sure of having a fool for his physician. How many a 
chatterbox might pass for a wiseacre, if he could keep his own 
secret, and put a drag chain, now and then, upon his tongue. 
The largest minds have the smallest opinion of themselves ; 
for their knowledge impresses them with humility, by show- 
ing the extent of their ignorance, and this discovery makes 
them taciturn. Deep waters are still ; wise men generally 
talk little, because they think much: feeling the annoyance 
of idle loquacity in others, they are cautious of falling into the 
same error, and keep their mouths shut, when they cannot 
open them to the purpose. 

Small wits, on the contrary, are usually great talkers. 
Uttering whatever comes uppermost, and every thing being 
superficial, their shallowness makes them noisy, and their con- 
fidence offensive. If we might perpetrate, at the same time, a 
pun and paradox, we should affirm, that the smaller the calibre 
of the mind, the greater the bore of a perpetually open mouth. 
Human heads are like hogsheads — the emptier they are, the 
louder report they give of themselves. The chatterbox, ac- 
cording to the Italians, "parla prima e pensa poi" (speak 



THE TIN TKUMPET. 243 

first, and think after ;) but we have specimens in this country, 
who never think either before or after. The clock of their 
word-mill is heard, even when there is no wind to set it going, 
and no grist to come from it. 

M. de Bautre, being in the antechamber of Cardinal Rich- 
elieu, at the time that a great talker was loudly and inces- 
santly babbling, begged him to be silent, lest he should annoy 
the Cardinal. " Why do you wish me not to speak ? " asked 
the chatterbox; "I talk a good deal, but I talk well." 
" Half of that is true," said M. de Bautre. 

TASTE — A quick and just perception of beauty and de- 
formity in works of art. This is one definition. In general 
taste is a metaphorical expression ; and it is a mere word of 
classification, including several distinct feelings of the mind, 
exactly as the primary taste includes several distinct feelings 
of the body. It includes the feeling of beauty in all its very 
numerous meanings, the feeling of novelty, the feeling of gran- 
deur, the feeling of sublimity, the feeling of propriety, and 
perhaps many others. 

Precisely in the same manner, the natural taste includes the 
taste of sweet, sour, hot, cold, moist, savory, and many others, 
which are so pleasantly exemplified every day in this great 
town ; so that, when we use the word taste, we must recollect 
that there is no single feeling of the mind which has obtained 
that name, but that it is a classifying, comprehensive word, 
embracing a great number of distinct feelings. 

As for the uses of the word ; in the lighter parts of morals 
it may perhaps be brought in, but in the greater virtues and 
vices, certainly not. If a man were to kill the minister and 
church- war dens of his parish, nobody would accuse him of 
want of taste. The Scythians always ate their grandfathers ; 
they behaved very respectfully to them for a long time, but as 
soon as their grandfathers became old and troublesome, and 
began to tell long stories, they immediately eat them : nothing 
could be more improper, and even disrespectful, than dining 
off such near and venerable relations ; yet we could not with 
any propriety accuse them of bad taste in morals. Neither is 



244 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

the word taste used in subjects of pure reasoning. We could 
not say, that he who discovered an error in a mathematical 
problem had a good taste for reasoning ; that he who made 
the error had a bad taste ; — to find that 12 times 12 is 144, is 
not a business of taste. Neither can we use the word taste 
with respect to very useful inventions. We could not say that 
Bolton and Watt exhibited a great deal of taste in the im- 
provements they made upon the steam-engine ; nor could we 
say that Archimedes exhibited a fine taste in the machines he 
invented for dashing to pieces the Koman galleys, and knock- 
ing out the brains of the Roman soldiers. Some of these 
things appear too important for the application of that word ; 
others, too certain. It seems to have been intended that the 
metaphor should apply to feelings connected with pleasure 
and pain, not with duties and crimes ; with the superfluous, 
the lighter, and more luxurious sensations of the mind, not 
with those which become the subjects of approbation and 
disapprobation. 

TASTE — Natural — The subject of taste has given rise to 
a very curious controversy ; — whether every feeling of taste 
depends upon accidental association, or whether, by the origi- 
nal constitution of nature, it is connected with any particular 
object of sense, it is admitted on all hands that the feeling of 
beauty and sublimity very frequently, and even in a great 
majority of instances, depends upon mere association. For one 
instance : — in the estimation of Europeans, part of the beauty 
of a face is the color of the cheek ; not that there is some- 
thing in that particular position of red color, which, I believe, 
is of itself beautiful, — but habit has connected it also with the 
idea of health. An Indian requires that his wife's face should 
be of the color of good marketable sea-coal ; another tribe is 
enamored of deep orange ; and a cheek of copper is irresistible 
to a fourth. Every color is agreeable, in each of these in- 
stances, which is connected with the idea of youth and beauty ; 
the beauty is not in the color itself, but in the notions which 
the color summons up. 

To prove, however, that there exists, in the human heart, 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 245 

a natural and innate feeling which may be called taste, it is 
only necessary to cast one's eyes down the table at a public 
dinner or an aldermanic banquet ; to look at men when (as 
Bishop Taylor says) they are " gathered round the eels of 
Syene, and the oysters of Lucrinus, and when the Lesbian 
and Chian wines descend through the limbec of the tongue and 
larynx ; when they receive the juice of fishes, and the marrow 
of the laborious ox, and the tender lard of Apulian swine, and 
the condited stomach of the scarus." 

TAVEBN — A house kept for those who are not house- 
keepers. 

TAXES — "What a nation pays for glory; national glory 
being obtained in general under the Manifest-Destiny Dispen- 
sation. Sydney Smith has well enumerated the fruits of an in- 
sane desire for national aggrandizement, as including: "Taxes 
upon every article which enters into the mouth, or covers the 
back, or is placed under the foot — taxes upon every thing which 
it is pleasant to see, hear, feel, smell, or taste — taxes upon 
warmth, light, and locomotion — taxes on every thing on earth, 
and the waters under the earth — on every thing that comes 
from abroad, or is grown at home — taxes on the raw material 
— taxes on every fresh value that is added to it by the indus- 
try of man — taxes on the sauce which pampers man's appetite, 
and the drug that restores him to health — on the ermine which 
decorates the judge, and the rope which hangs the criminal — 
on the poor man's salt, and the rich man's spice — on the brass 
nails of the coffin, and the ribbons of the bride — at bed or board, 
couchant or levant, we must pay. The schoolboy whips his 
taxed top — the beardless youth manages his taxed horse, with 
a taxed bridle, on a taxed road ; and the dying Englishman, 
pouring his medicine, which has paid 7 per cent., into a spoon 
that has paid 15 per cent., flings himself back upon his chintz 
bed, which has paid 22 per cent., — and expires in the arms of 
an apothecary who has paid a license of a hundred pounds for 
the privilege of putting him to death. His whole property is 
then immediately taxed from 2 to 10 per cent. Besides the 



246 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

probate, large fees are demanded for burying him in the chan- 
cel ; his virtues are handed down to posterity on taxed marble ; 
and he is then gathered to his fathers — to be taxed no more." 

TEXT — Scriptural — A fertile source of delusion and 
bigotry to those particularly clear-sighted people, who prefer 
the letter which killeth, to the spirit which giveth life. 

"From drugs intended to impart 

Belief to sickness, care, and pain, 
The chemist, with transmutive art, 

Extracts a poison and a bane. 
So does the bigot's art abuse 

The sacred page of love and life ; 
And turn its sweet and hallowed use 

To deadly bitterness and strife. 

" As purblind or short-sighted elves 
Measure their glasses by themselves, 
And deem those spectacles most true 
Which suit their own distorted view, 
So every weak, fanatic creature, 
Makes of himself a Bible-meter ; 
Chooses those portions of the word 
Which with Lis blindness best accord, 
And closes up his darken'd soul 
Against the spirit of the whole. 

"Learn this, ye flbunderers in the traps 
Of insulated lines and scraps, — 
Though all the texts of Scripture shoot, 

Like hairs within a horsed tail, 
From one consolidated root, 

Where beauty, strength, and use prevail, 
Singly, they're fit, like single hairs, 
Only for springes, nets, and snares." 

Tertullian gives the best advice upon this subject when he 
says — " We ought to interpret Scripture, not by the sound of 
words, but by the nature of things." — Malo te ad sensum rei, 
quam ad sonum vocahuli exerceas. 

THOUGHT — is the spirit of which words are the embodi- 
ment. How a fine idea frets till it finds its own true word- 



THE TIN TEUMPET. 247 

bride! In the union of noble thoughts and fair phrases the 
sons of God still marry the daughters of men. 

TIME — The vehicle that carries every thing into nothing. 
"We talk of spending our time, as if it were so much interest of 
a perpetual annuity ; whereas we are all living upon our cap- 
ital, and he who wastes a single day, throws away that which 
can never be recalled or recovered.* 

TINDER — A thin rag — such for instance as the dresses of 
modern females, intended to catch the sparks, raise a flame, 
and light up a match. 

TITHES — It is maintained by some, that in England the 
tithes are no hardship, or that they solely affect the landlord : 
nay, it is affirmed by one writer, that the agricultural interest 
in general desire their conservation. My friend T. H. — who 
will have his joke, however serious may be the subject, or 
pitiful the pun it elicits — asserts, that the burden of this im- 
post falls upon the farmer, and that if he be really in favor 
of the tithe, it must be for the same reason that the Mahom- 
etan respects Mecca — because it is the burial-place of his 
prophet. 

TITLES of BOOKS— Decoys to catch purchasers. There 
can be no doubt that a happy name to a book is like an agree- 
able appearance to a man ; but if in either case the final do not 
answer to the first impression, will not our disappointment add 
to the severity of our judgment ? " Let me succeed with my 
first impression," the bibliopolist will cry, " and I ask no more. 
The public are welcome to end with condemning, if they will 
only begin with buying. Most readers, like the Tuft-hunters 
at college, are caught by titles." How inconsistent are our 
notions of morality ! No man of honor would open a letter 
that was not addressed to him, though he will not scruple to 
open a book under the same circumstances. Oolton's " Lacon" 
has gone through thirteen editions, and yet it is addressed " to 
those who think." Had the author substituted for these 



248 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

words " those who think they are thinking," it might not have- 
had so extensive a sale, although it would have been directed 
to a much larger class. He has shown address in his address. 

TOLERATION" — Being wise enough to have no difference 
with those who differ from us. The mutual rancor of con- 
flicting sects is inversely as their distance from each other ; no 
one hating a Jew or a Pagan half so much as a fellow-Chris- 
tian, who agrees with him in all but one unimportant point. 

If a Hindoo or Mahometan philosopher were to contemplate 
five hundred different sects of Christians, spitting fire and eter- 
nal perdition at each other, in flagrant defiance of the very 
Scriptures which they profess to teach and obey, would he not 
be tempted to exclaim — "Unhappy men! ye are all likely to 
be equally right in your denunciations, for when ye condemn 
each other, ye condemn yourselves ! " 

" Fain would the bard on all impress 

The hatred of intolerance, 
Teach them their fellow-men to bless, 

Whatever doctrines they advance, 
Bid every fierce, contending sect 
Humble its passions, and reflect, 
That real Christians love the souls 

Of those by whom their own are doom'd, 
As frankincense perfumes the coals 

By which it is itself consumed." 

TOMB — A house built for a skeleton : a dwelling of sculp- 
tured marble, provided for dust and corruption : a monument 
set up to perpetuate the memory of — the forgotten. 

TONGUE — The mysterious membrane that turns thought 
into sound. Drink is its oil — eating its drag chain. 

TRAVELLERS— The mass of travellers are asses. A little 
knowledge is a dangerous thing ; and especially the very little 
knowledge of a country and people attainable by a few months' 
residence. Dickens spent two months in a journey through 
sixteen of the United States, and left our shores with the im- 
pression that all American men chew tobacco and talk through 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 



249 



the nose, and all American women are ignorant. A more lu- 
dicrous instance still is that of a M. Fievee, a Frenchman, who 
in the beginning of this century spent some weeks in England, 
and collected during that time sufficient material for a book, 
wherein he makes the following charges against the English : 
That they do not understand fireworks as well as the French ; 
that they charge a shilling for admission to the exhibition ; 
that they have the misfortune of being incommoded by a cer- 
tain disgraceful privilege, called the liberty of the press ; that 
the opera band plays out of tune ; that the English are so fond 
of drinking, that they get drunk with a certain air called the 
gas of Paradise ; that the privilege of electing members of 
parliament is so burdensome, that cities sometimes petition to 
be exempted from it ; that the great obstacle to a parliament- 
ary reform is the mob ; that women sometimes have titles dis- 
tinct from those of their husbands — although, in England, any- 
body can sell his wife at market with a rope about her neck. 
To these complaints he adds — that the English are so far from 
enjoying that equality of which their partisans boast, that 
none but the servants of the higher nobility can carry canes 
behind a carriage ; that the English have no family affections, 
and love money so much, that their first question, in an inquiry 
concerning the character of any man, is, as to his degree of 
fortune. Lastly, M. Fievee alleges against the English, that 
they have great pleasure in contemplating the spectacle of 
men deprived of their reason. And indeed we must have the 
candor to allow that the hospitality which M. Fievee experi- 
enced, seems to afford some pretext for this assertion. 

TEIALS — Moral ballast, that often prevents our capsizing. 
Where we have much to carry, God rarely fails to fit the back 
to the burden ; where we have nothing to bear, we can seldom 
bear ourselves. The burdened vessel may be slow in reaching 
the destined port ; but the vessel without ballast becomes so 
completely the sport of the winds and waves, that there is 
danger of her not reaching it at all. 

Danjeau, the French grammarian, when told that a revolu- 
tion was approaching, exclaimed, rubbing his hands : " Well, 
11* 



250 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

come what may, I have two hundred verbs well conjugated 
in my desk." 

TRIFLES — may be not tmly tolerated but admired, when 
we respect the trifler. Little things, it has been said, are 
only valued when coming from him who can do great things. 
It has been affirmed that trifles are often more absorbing than 
matters of importance ; but this can only be true when said 
of a trifler — of a mean mind pursuing mean objects. Mirabeau 
maintains that morality in trifles is always the enemy of mo- 
rality in things of importance ; a position not less untrue than 
dangerous ; for it is precisely in trivial affairs that a delicate 
sense of honor and rectitude is most certainly exhibited, as we 
throw up a feather and not a stone to ascertain the direction 
of the wind. 

TROPICS — Insects are the curse of tropical climates. The 
bete rouge lays the foundation of a tremendous ulcer. In a 
moment you are covered with ticks. Chigoes bury themselves 
in your flesh, and hatch a colony of young chigoes in a few 
hours. They will not live together, but every chigoe sets up 
a separate ulcer and has his own private portion of pus. Flies 
get entry into your mouth, into your eyes, into your nose ; 
you eat flies, drink flies, and breathe flies. Lizards, cock- 
roaches, and snakes, get into the bed ; ants eat up the books ; 
scorpions sting you on the foot. Every thing bites, stings, or 
bruises ; every second of your existence you are wounded by 
some piece of animal life that nobody has ever seen before, 
except Swammerdam and Meriam. An insect with eleven legs 
is swimming in your teacup, a nondescript with nine wings 
is struggling in the small beer, or a caterpillar with several 
dozen eyes in his belly is hastening over the bread and butter ! 
All nature i3 alive, and seems to be gathering all her entomo- 
logical hosts to eat you up, as you are standing, out of your 
coat, waistcoat, and breeches. Such are the tropics. All this 
reconciles us to our dews, fogs, vapors, and drizzle — to our 
apothecaries rushing about with gargles and tinctures — to our 
cold. 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 251 

TEUTHS— Many a truth is like a wolf which we hold by 
the ears — afraid to let it escape, and yet scarcely able to retain 
it. And why should we let it go, if it be likely to worry or 
annoy our neighbor. To promulgate truth with a malicious 
intention, is worse than to infringe it with a benevolent one, 
inasmuch as a pleasant deception is often better than a painful 
reality. It was a saying of the selfish Fontenelle, that if he 
held the most important truth, like a bird in his hand, he 
would rather crush it than let it go. Lessing, the German, on 
the contrary, found such a delight in the investigation of truth, 
that he professed his readiness to make over all claim as its 
discoverer, provided he might still be allowed to pursue it. 
Nor can we wonder at his holy ardor, for to follow truth to its 
source, is to stand at the footstool of God. 

A new truth has to encounter three normal stages of oppo- 
sition. In the first it is denounced as an imposture ; in the 
second — when it is beginning to force itself into notice — it is 
curiously examined and plausibly explained away ; in the 
third, or cui bono stage, it is decried as useless. And when it 
is finally admitted, it passes only under a protest that it has 
been perfectly known for ages — a proceeding intended to make 
the new truth ashamed of itself, and wish it had never been 
born. 

When Algernon Sydney was told that he might save his 
life by telling a falsehood — by denying his handwriting — he 
said : " When God has brought me into a dilemma in which I 
must assert a lie or lose my life, He gives me a clear indication 
of my duty, which is to prefer death to falsehood. 

UGLIKESS — An advantageous stimulus to the mind, that 
it may make up for the deficiencies of the body. Medusa's 
head was carried by Minerva ; and it will generally be found, 
that as beauty remains satisfied with exterior attractions, plain- 
ness strives to recommend itself by interior beauty. Talent 
and amiability, which are more lovable than mere loveliness, 
will always impart a charm to their possessor, as the want of 
them will render even a Venus unattractive. Countenance or 
moral beauty, the reflection of the soul, is as superior to super- 



252 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

ficial comeliness, as mind is to matter. It is a lialo, which in- 
dicates the mens divinior, and will win worshippers, however 
unadorned may be the shrine whence it emanates, for she who 
looks good cannot fail to be good-looking. 

UMBRELLA — An article which, by the morality of society, 
you may steal from friend or foe, and which, for the same rea- 
son, you should not lend to either. 

USURY — Law of — Punishing a man for making as much 
as he can of his money, although he is freely allowed to make 
as much money as he can. Usury (ah usu ceris) is rent for 
money, as rent is usury for land. 

VANITY — like laudanum, and other poisonous medicines, 
is beneficial in small, though injurious in large quantities. No 
man, who is not pleased with himelf, even in a personal sense, 
can please others ; for it is the belief of his own grace that 
makes him graceful and gracious. If it be a recommendation 
to dress our minds to the best advantage, and to render our- 
selves as agreeable as possible, why should it be an objection 
to bestow the same pains upon personal appearance ? Dress 
often influences character ; for the man whose well-regulated 
mind has a due sense of propriety and fitness, will train him- 
self from the outside inwards, and act up to his externals. Our 
present uniformity, and plainness of attire, have given a mo- 
notony to character, and lowered the general standard of man- 
ners. Who can look on a cloth sleeve and drab trowsers with 
the elevating feelings inspired by embroidered silk and the 
dangling sword, which, in determining the rank, conferred, to 
a certain degree, the sentiments and the demeanor of a gentle- 
man ? When men, too, wore different dresses according to 
their age, they naturally adapted their deportment and conver- 
sation to their attire, which tended still further to produce 
individual consistency, and general variety. As old and young 
now wear the same habiliments, there is as little difference in 
their manners as in their coats ; a sameness which cannot be 
right in one direction, and may be wrong in both. 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 253 

A fool in a high station is like a man in a balloon*— every- 
body appears little to him, and he appears little to everybody. 

VERSE — There seems to be no peculiar adaptation of the 
rhythm or verse to the subject, whether grave or gay, which 
custom and association may not conquer. The French Alex- 
andrine, in which Eacine composed his tragedies, and Yoltaire 
his Henriade, is the burlesque verse of the English. Compare 
the following, or any other line of the Phedre — 

" D'un mensonge — aussi noir— justement— irrite," 

and its rhythm will be found nearly identical with this, from 
_ Anstey's Bath Guide — 

" For his wig— had the luck — a cathartic — to meet." 

On the contrary, the French burlesque verse is nearly the same 
as the heroic ten syllable verse of the English. 

YIOE — Miscalculation ; obliquity of moral vision ; tempo- 
rary madness. A single vice, thrown aside only because it 
was worn out, is often considered a valid set-off against all 
those that we still retain. Heaven, it is said, rejoices over one 
penitent sinner, more than over ninety and nine that have 
never erred ; but it is not written that one sin, by which we 
have been abandoned, is to give us acquittance for the ninety 
and nine that we continue to practise. And yet there are 
many who seem to imagine, that squeamishness upon a single 
point will give them warrant for a want of scruple upon all 
others. Brissot, to whose writings and conduct the horrid 
massacres of the Tuileries, on the 10th of August, 1792, have 
'been principally ascribed, exclaimed, in defending himself to 
Dumont, — " Look at the extreme simplicity of my dwelling, 
and see whether you can justly reproach me with dissipation 
or frivolity. For two years I have not been near a theatre !" 
the man whose starch morality will not allow him to witness 
tragedies at a playhouse, may surely be allowed to perpetrate 
them on the stage of real life ! 



254 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

It may be doubted, whether vice be so effectually repress- 
ed by the fear of future, as of immediate punishment. Jack 
Ketch exercises a more potent influence than the devil ; for 
none can doubt the existence of the forme^ while evil men 
have a strong motive to be sceptical as to the existence and 
avenging power of the latter. The hope of future reward is 
the best consolation to the good under affliction ; but the be- 
lief that virtue and vice are their own reward and punishment, 
even in this world, will moralize many from a sense of interest, 
who might not have been so certainly reclaimed by a sense of 
duty. 

VULGARITY — is not found in uncivilized life, because, 
in that state, there is little difference of rank, and less of man- 
ners ; nor is it, in a civilized country, a deficiency of politeness 
or refinement, as compared with the most polished classes ; or 
a peasant may be a gentleman, and a peer a vulgarian. 

Vulgarity of manners may coexist with a polished mind, 
and urbanity with a vulgar one ; the union of both constitutes 
the gentleman, whatever may be the grade in which it is 
found. 

"WAGS AKD WITS — Lamps that exhaust themselves in 
giving light to others. Their gibes, their gambols, their 
songs, their flashes of merriment, their puns and bon-mots, 
and bright, and sharp, and pointed sayings, are but as so many 
swords, which, the oftener they are drawn forth, do but the 
sooner wear out the scabbard. It is much easier to make 
others forget time, than to prevail on old Chronos to forget 
us. The fetes to which a man of wit is invited, only afford an 
excuse to the fates for shortening his thread. He finds it is 
no joking ; his stomach and his convivial reputation fail him 
at once ; his jests die because he cannot digest ; so many 
good things have gone into his mouth, that none can come out 
of it ; and the fellow of mark and likelihood, without whom 
no party was deemed complete, no laughter-loving guests 
assured of constant coruscations and cachinnations, becomes 
used up, worn out, stultified, superannuated, and is left to his 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 255 

obscure lodging, to digest, if he can, his own indigestions, to 
be taken by the hand by no one but the gout, and to try soli- 
tary conclusions with the grim sergeant — death. An old joke, 
especially if it be very little of its age, is a bad thing, as the read- 
ers of this work must often have exclaimed; but an old joker 
is a sad thing, as many a facetious ancient has found to his cost. 

"WANTS — Suicides and self-destroyers. Man's bodily 
wants have been the great stimulus to all the arts, sciences, 
and discoveries, which have elevated him to his present civili- 
zation. The nakedness, helplessness, and necessities of the 
"bare forked animal," combined with the amazing powers 
and lofty aspirations of his reason, have enabled him to be- 
come the true lord of the creation, to conquer the elements by 
which he is surrounded, and to make them minister not only 
to the removal of his minutest wants, but to the supply of his 
most superfluous luxuries. Had he been born with the fur 
coat, or the stomach of a bear, he would have remained a 
brute, or at best a savage. 

WAR — National madness. An irrational act confined to 
rational beings; the pastime of kings and statesmen, the 
curse of subjects. Admitting the social instinct of man, Montes- 
quieu was not afraid to confess, that the state of war begins 
with that of society ; but this desolating truth, which Hobbes 
has abused to praise the tranquillity of despotism, and Rous- 
seau, to celebrate the superior independence of savage life, is 
with the philosopher the sacred and salutary plea for govern- 
ment and laws, which are an armistice between states, and a 
treaty of perpetual peace between citizens. 

WHISKERS— "I cannot imagine," said Alderman H., 
" why my whiskers should turn gray so much sooner than 
the hair of my head." " Because you have worked so much 
more with your jaws than your brains," observed a wag. 

WINDMILLS — Machines which are only kept going by 
being perpetually puffed, in which respect they bear a pointed 



256 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

resemblance to certain authors. The latter raise the wind by 
increasing their sales, whereas the former diminish their sail 
as the wind increases. 

WISDOM OF OUR ANCESTORS— The experience of 
the inexperienced, and the superior knowledge of the igno- 
rant. Old women in pantaloons, who object to the smallest 
reform in our antiquated establishments, because they suited 
our forefathers, recall to memory the debate in the assembly 
of the Sorbonne upon the propriety of ordering new table- 
cloths. " What ! " exclaimed a gray-bearded doctor, the con- 
servative of the college, " are we wiser than our grandfathers ? 
Are not these the identical cloths of which they so long made 
use?" "Yes," said another, "and that is the reason why 
they are completely worn out." 

WIT — consists in discovering likenesses — judgment in 
detecting differences. Wit is like a ghost, much more often 
talked of than seen. To be genuine, it should have a basis of 
truth and applicability, otherwise it degenerates into mere 
flippancy ; as, for instance, when Swift says, — " A very little 
wit is valued in a woman, as we are pleased with a few 
words spoken plain by a parrot ; " or when Voltaire remarks, 
that " Ideas are like beards ; women and young men have 
none." This is a random facetiousness, if it deserves that 
term, which is equally despicable for its falsehood and its 
facility. 

Where shall we discover that rarer species of wit, which, 
like the vine, bears the more clusters of sweet grapes the 
oftener it is pruned ; or, like the seven-mouthed Nile, springs 
the faster from the head, the more copiously it flows from the 
mouth ? 

The sensations excited by wit are destroyed, or at least 
impaired, if it excites the stronger emotions, or even if it be 
connected with purposes of utility and improvement. We may 
laugh where it is bitter, as the Sardinians did when they had 
tasted of their venomous herb ; but this is the risibility of the 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 257 

muscles, allied to convulsions rather than to intellectual 
pleasure. 

. Leigh Hunt devotes forty pages of one of his books — and 
fails to elucidate the mystery at last. Johnson defines wit as 
" the faculty of associating dissimilar images in an unusual 
manner." Sydney Smith, in his " Lectures on Moral Philoso- 
phy," shows the fallacy of this definition, gives a better, and 
broaches the startling doctrine that wit, so far from being 
necessarily a natural gift, might be studied as successfully as 
mathematics. It is a question if Sheridan was witty when, 
staggering along, half tipsy, he was eyed by a policeman, and 
exclaimed, confidentially, " My name is Wilberforce — I am a 
religious man — don't expose me." 

Talleyrand, when asked by a lady famous for her beauty 
and stupidity how she should rid herself of some of her trouble- 
some admirers, replied, 

" You have only to open your mouth, Madame." 

This, if witty, was also ill-natured. 

Lord Chatham rebuked a dishonest Chancellor of the Ex- 
chequer by finishing a quotation the latter had commenced. 
The debate turned upon some grant of money for the encour- 
agement of art, which was opposed by the Chancellor of the 
Exchequer, who finished his speech against Lord Chatham's 
motion by saying, " ' Why was not this ointment sold and the 
money given to the poor ? ' " Chatham rose, and said, " Why- 
did not the noble lord complete the quotation, the application 
being so striking ? As he has shrunk from it, I will finish the 
verse for him — ' This Judas said, not that he cared for the poor, 
but because he was a thief, and carried the tag.'' " 

It was coarse wit when Lord Byron, who was groaning 
with agony from a severe attack of colic, and exclaiming, 
"Lord help me! I am dying," was told by Trelawney, "not 
to make such an infernal fuss about dying." 

Luttrell tells a story of Sir F. Gould, who had a habit of 
adding the phrase " on the contrary " to every thing he said ; 
a gentleman saying to him, " So I hear, Gould, you eat three 
eggs every morning for breakfast ? " " No," replied Sir Francis, 
" you are mistaken ; on the contrary — " "What the devil," 



258 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

said Luttrell, " does the contrary of eating three eggs mean? " 
" Laying them, of course ! " said Sheridan. This was ready wit. 

Rowland Hill compared a sinner to an oyster, which opened 
its shell, all mouth, to take in the water ; just as the sinner, 
with his mouth at full stretch, took in the tide of iniquity. 
" Heavenly grace," he said, was " like a rump of beef— cut 
and come again — no meagre fare, my dear brethren." 

Lydia White, an English magazine writer, was an invalid, 
and fancied herself continually at death's door, and used to 
invite people to see her die. A friend, who had gone several 
times by special invitation, and come away disappointed, at 
last refused to attend, pleading that he " could not afford to 
waste so much time on a mortuary uncertainty." 

Scotchmen are notoriously unable to appreciate a joke. 
Sydney Smith, who knows them well, says : " It requires a surgi- 
cal operation to get a joke into a Scotch understanding. Their 
only idea of wit, or wut, as they call it, is laughing immoder- 
ately at stated intervals." 

Some of the Irish judges of olden times were equally dull. 
One, in giving his dictum on a certain will case, said he " thought 
it very clear that the testator intended to keep a life interest 
in the estate himself." To it Ourran frankly replied, " Very 
true, my lord, very true ; testators generally do secure life in- 
terests to themselves, but in this case, I think your worship 
takes the will for the deed." 

Some stupid people repel wit as useless. But it may 
be asked what is labor without wit ? A pair of hands without 
a head ; strength without mind ; a solitary, silent, painstaking 
thing; moving through the dull earth, and blind as the earth in 
which it works. Labor is a brute beast, which wit harnesses 
and guides. Labor is wit's slave. By labor a man may 
live, but it is only by wit that he can live well. By labor, 
food and clothing may be produced, but by wit come life's 
ornaments and embellishments. Labor grasps a handful of 
earth, wit compasses the globe ; labor has but two hands, 
wit works with a thousand ; labor digs, wit ploughs ; labor 
toils heavily at the oar, wit spreads the broad sail or imprisons 
the struggling power of steam ; labor writes and slowly multi- 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 259 

plies the copies of its thoughts, wit prints, and its wisdom flies 
through the world on a myriad of wings at once ; labor grinds 
wearily at the hand-mill, wit catches the vagrant winds, binds 
up the strength of the lazily flowing stream, and makes them 
work its will ; labor has no legs but its own, wit appropriates 
the speed of the horse, or flies unwearily on the wings of the 
wind ; labor sits spinning at its solitary wheel, and slowly 
produces its fruits, while wit sets a thousand wheels at work 
at once, and the fable of Briareus ceases to be a romance ; 
labor is a man's humiliation, that brings him and binds him 
down to the earth, sensualizing his mind, and making him feel 
as though the very end of his being were but mere existence ; 
labor asks no questions, has no doubts, no thoughts, no aspira- 
tions, no intellectual ambition ; it sees nothing in nature but 
night and day, darkness and light — the night to sleep in and 
the day to work in ; and so it moves its melancholy, monoto- 
nous round, till it sinks to the dust and sleeps in a forgotten 
grave. But by wit man lives to all that is around him, above 
him, or beneath him. It is the ubiquity of the mind that con- 
verses at once with the course of the planets and the customs 
of the antipodes. It is ever busy in seeking to solve the great 
riddle of being. It is the living principle of life, and is that 
whereby a man feels that he is.- It is the exercise that 
strengthens but wearies not. It is the activity of intellect that 
finds as much pleasure in the arising of new doubts as in the 
solution of its old ones. It is the muscle and nerve of the soul, 
that longs for difficulties to wrestle with, and has an appetite 
for mental conflict. Labor, if it thinks at all, thinks only of 
and for itself; wit, though it thinks for itself, thinks of others ; 
it makes universal acquaintance with universal nature, it reads 
human thoughts, and sympathizes with human interests. Labor 
is selfish even in its generosity ; wit is generous in its selfish- 
ness. 

To conclude, you may sometimes show that you have not 
got your own wits about you, by thinking that other people 
hawe. When Mrs. M'Gibbon was preparing to act Jane Shore, 
at Liverpool, her dresser, an ignorant country girl, informed 
her that a woman had called to request two box orders, 



260 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

because she and her daughter had walked four miles on pur- 
pose to see the play. " Does she know me ? " inquired the mis- 
tress. " Not at all,' 1 was the reply. " What a very odd request ! " 
exclaimed Mrs. M'Gr. — " Has the good woman got her faculties 
about her ? " — " I think she have, ma'am, for I see she ha' got 
summut tied up in a red silk handkercher." 

WOMAN — An exquisite production of nature, between a 
rose and an angel, according to a German poet_; the female of 
the human species, according to the zoologists ; the redeeming 
portion of humanity, according to politer fact and experience. 
Woman is a treasure of which the profligate and the unmar- 
ried can never appreciate the full value, for he who possesses 
many does not possess one. Malherbe says in his Letters, 
that the Creator may have repented the creation of mau, but 
that he had no reason 'to repent having made woman. Who 
will deny this ; and which of us does not feel, though in due 
subjection to a holier religion, the devotion of Anacreon, who, 
when he was asked, why he addressed so many of his hymns 
to women, and so few to the deities, answered, "Because 
women are my deities ? " 

In England the upper classes are generally so much occupied 
with public affairs, or with local and magisterial duties, to say 
nothing of the uncongenial sports of the field, that women are 
obliged to associate with frivolous danglers and idlers, to whose 
standard they necessarily lower their minds and their conver- 
sation. To appear a blue-stocking, subjects a female to certain 
ridicule with those coxcombs who adopt the silly notion of 
Leasing, " that a young lady who thinks, is like a man who 
rouges," and who maintain that she should address herself, not 
to the sense, but to the senses of her male companions. Politics 
have thus tended to effect a mental dissociation of the sexes, 
the jealousy of dunces to trivialize the conversational inter- 
course that still subsists, and women, whose unchecked intel- 
lectual energies would be " Dolphin-like, and show themselves 
above the element they move in," are compelled to bow to this 
subjection, unless they have the courage to set up for blue- 
stockings—and old maids. Were their supremacy to effect no 



THE TIN TRUMPET. 261 

change in the present general character of the sex, I believe 
the world would be an incalculable gainer by making them 
lords of their lords, and committing to them the sole direction 
of all affairs, both national and domestic. As some of our 
most distinguished sovereigns have been females, is it unrea- 
sonable to conclude that we should ensure permanent good 
government for the whole human race, by acknowledging the 
sovereignty of the sex ? 

To the French must be assigned the honor of the follow- 
ing just encomium, " Sans les femmes les deux extremites de la 
vie seradent sans secours, et le milieu sans plaisirs." 

"WORDS — Sometimes signs of ideas, and sometimes of the 
want of them. When so many are coining new words, it is a 
security against a superfluous supply to know that old ones 
are occasionally lost. An Eton scholar, whose faculties had 
been bemuddled with the spondees and dactyls of prosody, 
having got out of nominal into real nonsense verses, carried 
up a soi-disant Latin epigram to his master. After reading it 
over two or three times very carefully, the pedagogue exclaimed, 
" I cannot find any verb here." "That is the reason that I 
brought it to you," said the boy with great naivete ; " I thought 
you might perhaps tell me where it was." 

WORLD — The — A great inn, kept in a perpetual bustle by 
arrivals and departures : by the going away of those who have 
just paid their bills, (the debt of nature,) and the coming of 
those who soon have a similar account to settle : — Decessio 
pereuntium, et successio periturorum. 

WRITING — Painting invisible words — giving substance 
and color to immaterial thought, enabling the dumb to talk 
to the deaf. 

WRONG — may be aggravated without any increase of evil 
doing, as good may be diminished without any abatement of 
actual beneficence. " Joyful remembrances of wrong actions," 
says Jean Paul, " are their half repetitions, as repentant remem- 



262 THE TIN TRUMPET. 

brances of good ones are their half abolishment. In law, the 
intention, not the act, constitutes the crime ; and in the moral 
law, virtue should be measured by the same standard. 

TAWNHsTG — Opening the mouth when you are sleepy, and 
want to shut your eyes ; an infectious sensation very prevalent 
during the delivery of a tedious sermon, or the perusal of a 
dull novel, but never experienced when reading a work like 
the present ! 

YEARS — of discretion. The young and giddy reader is 
requested to see — Greek Calends. 

YOUTH — A magic lantern, that surrouncls us with illusions 
which excite pleasure, surprise, and admiration, whatever be 
their nature. The old age of the sensual and the vicious is the 
same lantern without its magic — the glasses broken, and the 
illusions gone, while the exhausted lamp, threatening every 
moment to expire, sheds a ghastly glare, not upon a fair table- 
cloth, full of jocund associations, but upon what appears to be 
a dismal shroud, prepared to receive our remains. 

And now, gentle reader, or rather may I call you simple, 
if you have waded through this strange farago, here will I 
bring it to a close, hoping by its example the better to impress 
upon you the pithy precept, that all our follies and frivoli- 
ties, all our crude and undigested notions, all our " bald and 
disjointed talk," should, like this little volume, terminate with 
— Youth. 



the END. 



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